Deal sheet
- Status
- LAW ENACTED, FUNDING MECHANISM NOT OPERATIONAL. Adopted 12 May 2026 (76-1-0), published in the Journal Officiel 14 May 2026. Six months on, as of 7 November 2026, no implementing decree fixing the rate, deadline or collection mechanism had been located by this desk, and OTDAV, Tunisia's existing collecting society, is not named in the provision as reported.
- Type
- Investment
- Parties
- Organisme Tunisien des Droits d’Auteur et des Droits Voisins, Tunisie Telecom, Orange Tunisie, Ooredoo Tunisia
- Rights covered
- NOT a transfer of rights ownership. Article 39 of Tunisia's Law 2026-8 creates a statutory obligation on named telecom operators and internet service providers to pay a revenue-proportional contribution toward funding copyright and neighbouring rights in Tunisia, with the rate and collection mechanism left to a decree that had not been published as of this record. No masters, publishing or catalogue rights are assigned, licensed or administered by any party here.
- Territory
- Tunisia
- Announced
- 2026-05-12
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Tunisie Haut Debit (thd.tn), trade report, 13 May 2026, byline Walid Naffati. Sole detailed account read by this desk of Article 39's named payers (Tunisie Telecom, Ooredoo, Orange Tunisie, ATI, Gnet, Hexabyte, Bee, Netty), the revenue-proportional levy and the unpublished implementing decree. Fetched and read in full for this record. · Tunisie Numerique, confirms Loi n° 2026-8 du 13 mai 2026, JORT publication 14 May 2026, ARP adoption 12 May 2026, 76 votes for/1 abstention/0 against. Does not mention Article 39 or any telecom/ISP provision. Fetched and read 7 November 2026. · Businessnews.com.tn, confirms the 12 May 2026 adoption and 76-1-0 vote and the bill number 55/2023. Does not mention Article 39. Fetched and read 7 November 2026. · Businessnews.com.tn, general provisions of the law (professional card, contracts, social protection). Does not mention Article 39, telecom contributions or a rate. Fetched and read 7 November 2026. · Webdo, covers broadcast quotas, professional card, AI provisions. Does not mention Article 39, telecom operators or ISPs. Fetched and read 7 November 2026. · Tunisia Business, notes implementing decrees are pending generally ("modalites pratiques d'application restent a preciser par voie reglementaire") but does not name Article 39 or any telecom provision specifically. Fetched and read 7 November 2026. · Kapitalis, covers the professional-card and social-protection framing of the law. Does not mention Article 39, telecom or ISP contributions. Fetched and read 7 November 2026. · L'Economiste Maghrebin, describes a separate prospective ~100 million dinar/year fund from telecom-turnover and storage-media taxes via the Societe Tunisienne de Garantie. Does not mention Article 39; not established as the same mechanism. Fetched and read 7 November 2026. · OTDAV's own site, basis for its stated role as Tunisia's national collecting society under the Ministry of Culture (afw_company 1057, directory-verified 16 August 2026). · Ownership (65% state / 35% Dubai Holding via TECOM-DIG), Tunis headquarters, used only for the company-profile background of a named deal party. · Former name Tunisiana (to 24 April 2014), parent Ooredoo Group, used only for company-profile background. · Orange Tunisie, Tunisian mobile operator, parent organisation Orange, used only for company-profile background.
Read this before citing: ESTABLISHED, independently, from at least two Tunisian trade sources fetched and read directly for this record: Law 2026-8, "relative a l'artiste et aux metiers artistiques," was adopted by Tunisia's Assembly of the Representatives of the People on the evening of 12 May 2026, 76 votes for, 1 abstention, 0 against (Tunisie Numerique; Businessnews.com.tn). It originated as parliamentary bill 55/2023 (Businessnews.com.tn). It was published in the Journal Officiel on 14 May 2026, dated as Loi nxC2xB0 2026-8 du 13 mai 2026 (Tunisie Numerique). || SINGLE-SOURCED, AND LABELLED AS SUCH: the content of Article 39 itself, specifically that it makes telecom operators and internet service providers subject to revenue-proportional levies toward funding copyright and neighbouring rights, that the rate and mechanism are left to a decree not yet published, that the named operators are Tunisie Telecom, Ooredoo and Orange Tunisie, and the named internet service providers are ATI, Gnet, Hexabyte, Bee and Netty, rests on one outlet: Tunisie Haut Debit (thd.tn), published 13 May 2026, byline Walid Naffati. Five other Tunisian outlets covering the same law's passage (Tunisie Numerique; Businessnews.com.tn, two articles; Webdo; Tunisia Business; Kapitalis), all fetched and read directly for this record, do not mention Article 39, a telecom contribution, an ISP, or a copyright rate at all. This desk could not independently corroborate the article's specific wording against a second outlet or against the primary legal text. || PRIMARY TEXT NOT REACHED: jort.tn and legislation.tn, the two portals that would carry the Journal Officiel text, both refused the connection from this desk's server on repeated attempts on 7 November 2026. Juridoc.tn hosts the text but requires a login beyond Article 1; this desk confirmed that limit directly rather than asserting unseen content. No working link to a PDF of JORT issue 48 (14 May 2026) was located. The exact wording of Article 39, as opposed to Tunisie Haut Debit's paraphrase of it, is therefore NOT independently verified by this desk. || DATE DISCREPANCY RESOLVED: Tunisie Haut Debit's own article contains an internal date error, describing the adoption as happening "dans la nuit du mardi 12 mai 2025." 12 May 2025 was a Monday, not a Tuesday, and every other outlet checked (Tunisie Numerique, Businessnews.com.tn) independently dates the same 76-1 vote to Tuesday 12 May 2026. This desk treats 2026 as correct and the "2025" in the Tunisie Haut Debit text as a typo, on the strength of two independent, mutually consistent sources plus the internal weekday check. || NOT THE SAME THING: a 13 May 2026 commentary in L'Economiste Maghrebin, read directly for this record, describes a prospective fund that "pourrait mobiliser environ 100 millions de dinars par an" from telecom-turnover and imported-storage-media taxes, administered partly through the Societe Tunisienne de Garantie as a loan guarantee. That piece does not mention Article 39, and this desk could not establish whether it describes the same funding mechanism, a different, earlier-stage proposal, or a separate instrument (Tunisia has a distinct 1.75 per cent telecom-turnover levy funding a cinema and audiovisual investment fund under the Centre National du Cinema et de l'Image, which is a different, already-established mechanism and is explicitly NOT the subject of this record). The two should not be conflated and this desk has not conflated them. || OTDAV: VERIFIED ROLE, VERIFIED ABSENCE. OTDAV (Organisme Tunisien des Droits d'Auteur et des Droits Voisins, afw_company 1057, directory-verified 16 August 2026) is Tunisia's existing national collecting society for musical, dramatic and literary works, under the Ministry of Culture, per its own site. Tunisie Haut Debit's account of Article 39 does not name OTDAV, or any body, as the collector or distributor of the new telecom contribution. This desk did not find a published OTDAV statement about Law 2026-8 either way; OTDAV's own legislation page did not load within this desk's timeout on 7 November 2026 and the attempt was not completed. || NOT ESTABLISHED: whether any decree implementing Article 39 has been published since 14 May 2026 (none was found as of 7 November 2026); the rate or percentage of the levy; which entity, if any, will collect or distribute it; whether OTDAV's mandate covers this levy; and whether any of the eight named companies has paid anything under this provision to date. Absence of a published decree is not proof that none exists in a register this desk could not reach; it is the limit of what this desk could verify.
What was voted, and when
On the evening of Tuesday 12 May 2026, Tunisia’s Assembly of the Representatives of the People adopted Law 2026-8, “relative a l’artiste et aux metiers artistiques” (on the artist and artistic professions), by 76 votes in favour, one abstention and none against. Two independently fetched Tunisian trade reports, Tunisie Numerique and Businessnews.com.tn, agree on the date and the count. The text, originally tabled as parliamentary bill 55/2023, was published in the Journal Officiel de la Republique Tunisienne on 14 May 2026, dated 13 May 2026 as Loi n° 2026-8.
The provision this record is about
Of the law’s reported 45 articles, one is the subject of this record: Article 39. According to Tunisie Haut Debit (thd.tn), a Tunisian telecoms trade outlet, writing on 13 May 2026, Article 39 makes “operateurs de reseaux de communications electroniques” (telecom network operators) and digital broadcasting platforms “soumis a des redevances proportionnelles a leurs revenus, dont les modalites seront fixees par decret”: subject to levies proportional to their revenue, with the terms to be fixed by decree. The same outlet names eight companies as concerned: the three mobile network operators, Tunisie Telecom, Ooredoo and Orange Tunisie, and five internet service providers, ATI, Gnet, Hexabyte, Bee and Netty.
No percentage appears in that account. No deadline for the decree appears in it. No collection mechanism is named. Tunisie Haut Debit itself describes the destination only as a probability: “une part de ces recettes sera probablement reversee a un fonds dedie au soutien de la creation artistique nationale”, a share of the revenue will probably go to a fund dedicated to supporting national artistic creation. “Probablement” is the outlet’s own hedge, not this desk’s softening of a firmer claim.
What this desk could and could not verify directly
This desk tried to read Article 39 in the primary text itself, not in a paraphrase. Two Tunisian legal-text portals, jort.tn and legislation.tn, both refused the connection outright. Juridoc.tn hosts the law’s text but puts it behind a login after Article 1. No working link to a Journal Officiel PDF of issue 48 (14 May 2026) could be located. That attempt failed, and this record says so rather than asserting the article’s wording as independently confirmed.
What this desk did instead was check whether any other Tunisian outlet covering the same law’s passage corroborates Article 39’s content. Five were fetched and read directly: Tunisie Numerique and Businessnews.com.tn (twice, on the vote and on the law’s provisions), Webdo, Tunisia Business and Kapitalis. None of the five mentions Article 39, a telecom contribution, an internet service provider, or a copyright rate at all. They cover the professional card, the artistic contract, broadcast quotas for Tunisian works and social-protection provisions for irregular artistic work instead. A sixth account, a 13 May 2026 piece in L’Economiste Maghrebin, describes a different, earlier-stage proposal, a fund that “could raise about 100 million dinars a year” from telecom turnover and import-media taxes, run through the Societe Tunisienne de Garantie, that does not mention Article 39 either and does not obviously describe the same mechanism. The single detailed account of Article 39 itself, among everything this desk could reach, is Tunisie Haut Debit’s.
The absence that matters most: OTDAV is not named
The Organisme Tunisien des Droits d’Auteur et des Droits Voisins (OTDAV) is Tunisia’s own national collecting society, the body placed under the Ministry of Culture to license the public use of musical works and collect and distribute the resulting royalties. If any institution in Tunisia were going to bill eight telecom and internet companies and pay the proceeds to songwriters, it would ordinarily be this one.
According to Tunisie Haut Debit’s own reading, OTDAV is not mentioned in Article 39’s operative text. The outlet makes the point directly: a collective-management body would normally be the one invoicing the payers and distributing what comes in, and the law does not say that body is OTDAV, or name any body at all. The decree that is supposed to fix “modalites” has not been published, under this or any other title this desk could find, as of 7 November 2026, six months after enactment.
What this means for Tunisian artists, right now
There is no money to collect yet. A statutory duty to pay exists on paper for eight named companies. A rate does not exist. A due date for the rate does not exist. A named collector does not exist. Until a decree fixes all three, no telecom or internet company has anything specific to calculate, and no artist or publisher has anything to claim.
Do not assume OTDAV’s mandate automatically grew. OTDAV already licenses broadcasters, venues and other users of music in Tunisia under the 1994 copyright law. Nothing in what this desk could verify shows Article 39 adding the new telecom levy to OTDAV’s existing collection, or creating a separate fund outside it. Which is true is, on the public record reachable by this desk, not yet settled.
Watch for the decree, not the vote. The 76-1 vote on 12 May 2026 is a real legislative event. It is not, by itself, a payment, a rate or a distribution. The pattern is the same one this desk has already documented in Nigeria’s 200 million dollar Creative Economy Development Fund: a headline commitment, and a long gap before any money moves through a named channel to a named recipient.
