At a panel co-organised by the SAA and CineLink at the Sarajevo Film Festival, representatives from four collective management organisations compared notes on collecting and distributing royalties for screenwriters and directors. Two established CMOs, ZAPA (Poland) and AIPA (Slovenia), described the systems now working in their favour, while two developing ones, UFR (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and AZAS (North Macedonia), described years spent fighting to get authors paid at all.

In a world where cultural diversity is increasingly central in the discussions around the future of the European Union and its place in the global power shifts, the Advocate General (AG) in the case C-840/24 (VG Wort) reminds us that collective management organisations (CMOs) represent one of the building blocks of cultural development for a democratic (and diverse) society, by giving the chance to potential authors to create and express themselves.

While organisations representing rightsholders in Brussels are vastly outnumbered by large tech companies, EU Member States continue prioritising licensing mechanisms and the role of collective management organisations (CMOs). Following the Hungarian and Polish EU Presidencies initiative to advance the discussions among member states on AI and copyright (read part 1), Denmark followed up with a questionnaire about licensing frameworks. Here’s what we’ve learned (and responded):

Copyright protection in the AI era is in jeopardy. As the AI Act entered into force on 2 August, the challenges of copyright and AI remain not only unsolved but are becoming urgent. While the EU institutions tackle the problem from different fronts, a survey of European collective management organisations (CMOs) disclose the harsh reality: rightsholders are losing control of their works, AI companies are systematically avoiding licensing obligations, and the current legal framework is proving "unimpleme

Have you thought about all the times you watch films and TV when you are not at home nor at the cinema? Indeed, you are watching from the waiting room at the doctors, the airplane seat or in the classroom. These are all occasions when screenwriters and directors should be - but rarely are - receiving fair and proportionate remuneration for the use of their works.

5-years after the transposition deadline, the European Commission has concluded that the application of the Collective Rights Management Directive has had a positive effect on rightsholders and the licensing market. Therefore, there is no need for a review, said the Commission.

"Collective management – A safety net for authors and performers" is the title of the SAA and AEPO-ARTIS upcoming event on 17 March. It also well describes the results of the surveys the SAA conducted among its members, demonstrating the collective management organisations’ continued efforts and mobilisation of resources to support audiovisual authors through the pandemic.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, European collective management organisations (CMOs) were quick to mobilise speedy distribution of royalties and financial support to screenwriters and directors suffering due to the crisis. A much-needed help for many authors who do not fit the categories to benefit from governments’ emergency support.

I am back from Vilnius again where the Mykolas Romeris University, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania organized a conference on the collective management of authors’ and neighbouring rights in Europe, focusing on the implementation of the 2014/26/EU Directive on Collective Rights Management.

SAA's 2nd edition of its White Paper on Audiovisual Authors Rights and Remuneration in Europe underlines the explosion of different forms of exploitation of audiovisual works.

As the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs committee validated the Parliament-Commission-Council trilogue’s compromise text reached on 4 November, European audiovisual authors’ societies welcome the finalisation of the text of the Directive and call on the Commission to build on it now to improve authors’ remuneration in the digital era.