On the eve of Saint Nick’s visit to the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and the eastern and western reaches of France and Germany respectively, an old-fashioned game themed post.

German screenwriter and SAA patron, Fred Breinersdorfer, to speak at European Voice Copyright 2015 conference and underline the need for authors interests to also be part of the discussions on copyright reform and cross-border access.

Today is the big one. SAA and anyone else in the audiovisual sector is now under no doubt of which hearing they need to follow. Günther Oettinger.

Culture portfolio is losing departments as well as prestige and importance.

The clock strikes 12.

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

Now that the dust has settled from last week’s Licences for Europe plenary, I thought I would share some thoughts about the process and outcomes here.

Joint FERA, FSE and SAA contribution to converged media green paper underlines importance of AVMS Directive in guaranteeing future health of EU audiovisual production.

European filmmakers Stijn Coninx, Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Jaco Van Dormael, Jochen Greve, Michel Hazanavicius, Michael Roskam and Jan Theys met with European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, on Monday 6th May in Brussels.

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

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