On 18th September 2013 the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee held a hearing on private copying levies.  The hearing saw authors, performers, film producers, consumers and manufacturers present their visions of the system for MEPs to take into account as they prepare a report on the issue.

A major blow to device manufacturers and importers who just don’t want to be involved in the compensation of creators. Private copying seems to be taking up quite a bit of the European Court of Justice’s time just lately.

And by out, we mean out there, being watched.

In every copyright debate in Brussels everyone always agrees that legislation needs to be fair and balanced, and that creators should be paid.

Last week the European Parliament made a very strong statement.

Janine Lorente, the chair of SAA’s board of directors, spoke at the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee hearing on collective rights management on Monday.  She was one of 13 stakeholders in a detailed programme which showed just how many different stakeholders will be affected by the directive when it comes into force.  Out of the 13 presentations, only Janine looked at the issue from a non-music point of view.

SAA has been promoting the idea of an unwaivable remuneration right for the last two years.  Performers organisations have also called for a similar right.  Our analysis, put simply, is that while it would obviously be better to strengthen the negotiating position of screenwriters and directors by introducing standard contracts or changing contract law, the reality is that this is unlikely to happen at EU level.  Antonio Vitorino recognised this issue in his recommendations on private copying levies:

So, Licensing Europe is up and running and already being criticised by those who want copyright reform.

....or will it help European creators reach their audience? Following the European Commission’s orientation debate on copyright on 5th December 2012 and its conclusions on the way forward to modernising copyright in the digital economy (see last post Creators make themselves heard), the Commission published a communication on Content in the Digital Single Market on 18th December.  The communication detail its “Licensing Europe” initiative, a stakeholder dialogue whose assigned objective is to deliver

On 28th of November we launched a petition.  We were hoping to get 5,000 signatures within a week as the college of Commissioners was meeting on Wednesday 5th December to decide on their future approach on copyright.  The meeting was the culmination of months of evident discord within the college of Commissioners on the best approach for Europe to fully take advantage of one of its key assets – its creative industries – in the digital world.  President Barroso sought to set things straight and work out

1/3 of the world’s population meet daily on networks powered by digital technology, apparently.  A large proportion of them do so to listen to music or to watch a video.  What is the value of this digital technology without the creations?  

The Socialist group of the European Parliament organised a conference last week entitled “Copyright: What is Broken and How to Mend it?”.  Such debates are necessary if we are to escape the confrontation we have seen over the last year.