SAA - Society of Audiovisual Authors

SAA has joined the Platform on the Potential of Creative and Cultural Industries in 2010 and endorsed the recommendations the Platform issued in September 2009 in preparation of the Green Paper. In this context, SAA is disappointed that four important issues addressed in the recommendations made by the Platform are not developed in the Green Paper, whereas they are central to the European cultural and creative industries:

• The Green Paper focuses a lot on the importance of SMEs in the cultural and creative sectors and addresses their particular challenges, while it neglects the individual creators and the problems related to their status, rights and social and tax environments.
• Authors’ rights are very briefly mentioned and their challenges not addressed, while they are an essential enabler for artistic creation and represent the key system of protection of works, allowing their exploitation by the cultural and creative industries and rewarding the authors.
• The long-standing claim from the cultural and creative industries to provide reduced VAT rates for all cultural products and services, both online and offline, is not even mentioned in the Green Paper.
• The cultural exchanges and international trade chapter does not reflect the current discussions on the cultural cooperation protocols annexed to international agreements neither, whereas they aim at promoting the implementation of the UNESCO convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, which is the unique international instrument which recognizes the role of cultural and creative industries in the promotion of cultural diversity.

SAA’s contribution aims therefore at reintroducing these issues in the discussion on unlocking the potential of European cultural and creative industries and at answering the questions of the public consultation which are relevant to its field of activity

You can download SAA's contribution below.