EU Commission proposal for a regulation on broadcasting
18 January 2017
Contributions
The retransmission of TV and radio programmes is a very important market for audiovisual authors because it has developed in a collective management context thanks to the 93/83/EEC Directive. Today, very often, retransmission royalties are with private copying the only remuneration audiovisual authors receive when their works are exploited abroad.
SAA members’ collections for cable, satellite and IPTV retransmissions of TV and radio programmes amounted to €106m in 2014, around 21.6% of their combined audiovisual collections. In many European countries, cable retransmission royalties represent more than 40% of the collections of SAA member audiovisual authors’ CMOs (e.g. in Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Netherlands, UK). In these countries, cable retransmission royalties are the authors’ main revenue generated from the use of their works, in particular from foreign countries.
SAA therefore welcomes the provisions of the proposal for a Regulation which extend the system of mandatory collective management for cable retransmissions of TV and radio broadcasts provided in Directive 93/83/EEC. SAA has called for this technology neutral application of the mandatory collective management system to similar services and is happy to see it included in the Commission’s proposal.
However, the retransmission market has recently faced new challenges such as the “direct injection” doctrine which questions the applicability of Directive 93/83/EEC. Some cable operators claim that they are not covered by the mandatory collective management system of Directive 93/83/EEC because the programmes they retransmit are received via a new technical process (a point-to-point signal rather than a free-to-air signal), whereas their activity is still the same (retransmitting a TV signal to subscribers). This issue of direct injection, which has a huge impact on the market with authors missing out a substantial part of the collections they used to receive in some countries, is not addressed by the proposed Regulation. In the same spirit as the technology neutral application of Directive 93/83/EEC, it must also be clarified that direct injection is covered by the mandatory collective management system of Directive 93/83/EEC.
In addition, SAA is concerned about the erosion of the territorial licensing system in Europe through the extension of the satellite country of origin principle to certain online services offered by broadcasters, as also included in the proposed Regulation. This additional derogation to the territoriality principle could undermine the sales and financing of audiovisual works and should therefore be strictly limited.
SAA comments will therefore focus on two aspects:
- Strengthening the collective management of the retransmission right
- Preserving the territorial exploitation and financing of audiovisual works
Download the SAA full contribution.