I have just got back from Vilnius where I was invited by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture to make a presentation on the collective management of audiovisual authors’ rights.

SAA, FERA and FSE have put forward 7 areas where the European Parliament can make concrete progress for screenwriters and directors over the next 5 years.

SAA contribution summary to the EU Commission copyright consultation: putting authors Bback at the heart of copyright policy

The SAA is calling on European screenwriters, directors and their professional organisations to reply to the public consultation.

You may have followed the recent debate about Spotify payout rates (if not see here, here and here) following Thom Yorke’s initial criticism of the rates. After weeks of defending themselves and underlining how much it has paid out to rightholders, at the beginning of December Spotify updated their service and opened themselves up to some transparency (see articles here and here) on both statistics and royalties.  This notably included putting an approximate value on the per stream royalty rate – som

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

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:

A delegation of SAA members and patrons met Commissioner Barnier on 22nd February ...

Groupings of screenwriters, directors, composers, songwriters and journalists welcome adopted European Parliament report that calls for “fair and proportional” remuneration.

The European Parliament's culture committee has adopted a positive-looking report by Jean-Marie Cavada (France, EPP) on the online distribution of audiovisual works – the European Parliament’s follow-up report to the European Commission Green Paper from last year.

Robert Alberdingk Thijm, Fred Breinersdorfer, Stijn Coninx, Jan Hrebejk, Agnès Jaoui, Radu Mihaileanu, Volker Schlöndorff, Hugh Stoddart, Bertrand Tavernier, Jaco Van Dormael, Susanna White - Patrons of the Society of Audiovisual Authors - respond to Finish and Spanish ministers' comments in the European Voice.

Part of the problem with Piracy is that many fans don’t feel that they are giving anything to the creator, just to a big faceless company.  While this is obviously a simplistic view (most European producers are not that big and I doubt such fans check the size of the company before deciding whether to download legally or not) the reality in the audiovisual sector is that it is doubtful much (if any) of the money handed over will reach the authors.