The Greek Collecting Society for Literary Works (OSDEL) is a non‑profit civil cooperative society, licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Sports [in accordance with the provisions of Law 4481/2017 (amending Law 2121/1993) pertaining to the protection of copyright]. It has been in operation since 1997 (Government Gazette No 1164, 30.12.1997) and is housed in a privately-owned building at 73, Themistokleous Street in Exarcheia. As a civil cooperative society, it belongs to its members, the partners, and is managed by them.
The institutional bodies of OSDEL are its General Meeting, which is composed of all full members of the organisation, the Board of Directors, and the Supervisory Board. The administrative responsibilities of OSDEL are assigned to a 12-member Board of Directors, which is elected every three years by the General Meeting of its members. The management of OSDEL is overseen and monitored by a three-member Supervisory Board. OSDEL’s Board of Directors develops and monitors the implementation of the Organisation’s strategy. The managerial responsibilities of the Organisation are assigned to a senior manager who serves as its Director. The internal structure and operation of OSDEL are determined by its articles of association and the decisions of its Board of Directors.
OSDEL’s objective is the collective management and protection of copyright and related rights of the authors of literary works, as well as their licensees, and the publishers of literary works or visual and photographic works and their licensees. It represents more than 8,100 writers, journalists, translators, more than 1,100 publishers of books, periodicals and newspapers, and almost all foreign printed works through reciprocity agreements with 40 countries.
Its mission is to facilitate lawful access to and/or reproduction of printed works for educational purposes or for use by businesses, to collect and distribute royalties to rightholders, and to protect their works from plagiarism and piracy.
It seeks to improve Greek and European legislation and raise awareness of the importance of copyright and related rights in the Greek society. At the same time, it implements actions with cultural and social content, one of which is the recording of publishing output in Greece, within the framework of which it maintains and constantly updates the bibliographic database osdelnet.gr. It also represents Greece in international collective management associations (IFRRO, PDLN, etc.).
