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Newsletter // December 2018

Season's Greetings and Best Wishes for the New Year!

Calling for fair and proportionate remuneration in the Copyright Directive

Since the European Parliament adopted its position on the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market on 12 September, SAA has been actively calling on Member States to take on the Parliament’s position on fair and proportionate remuneration for authors. SAA, FERA and FSE sent letters to EU Ministers to draw their attention to the significant improvements introduced by the European Parliament on authors' remuneration. A petition on behalf of 21,000 signatories in support of Europe’s screenwriters and directors was handed over to Mariya Gabriel, the EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, by a delegation of prominent authors and their representative organisations led by Costa-Gavras. In November, SAA members and authors went to Strasbourg to meet with Members of the European Parliament and discuss the way forward on the Copyright Directive at a dinner in partnership with the LUX Film Prize (photo).

Ahead of the LUX Film Prize award ceremony in the European Parliament on 14 October, the three 2018 LUX Prize finalists’ - Benedikt Erlingsson, Wolfgang Fischer and Mila Turajlić - as well as many of the finalists since 2007, signed an open letter asking the EU decision-makers to take into account the fact that audiovisual creators should be linked to the life of their works (press release).

Joint statement of the European and international authors and performers' organisations

On 10 December, 14 European and international authors and performers' organisations came together with a statement to urge Member States to support the much-needed Article -14 providing for fair and proportionate remuneration to authors and performers in the Copyright Directive. This statement came ahead of the 5th trilogue negotiations between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council (Member States). Cécile Despringre, SAA Executive Director, explained the issues at stake for audiovisual authors to Screen Daily.

In 2019, our work will continue as the trilogue negotiations on the Copyright Directive will be carried on by the Romanian EU Presidency.

Welcoming the SatCab Directive and the AVMS Directive

On 13 December, a political agreement was found at the 6^th trilogue meeting on the Retransmission and Broadcasting Directive (also referred to as the SatCab Directive). The co-legislators agreed to transform the initial proposal for a Regulation into a Directive and found a solution to the much-debated scope of the country of origin principle. Subject to the text being made public, the country of origin principle will apply to the broadcasters’ online services only for the television programmes which are news and currents affairs and fully financed own productions of the broadcasting organisations. The revised Directive will also update the retransmission regime to the new digital environment beyond the pure cable technic and reaffirm the importance of collective rights management. Finally, it makes sure that creators are adequately remunerated when their works are used in programmes transmitted through direct injection. On 23 November, SAA, together with other European creators and producers’ organisations, sent a joint message to the negotiators to push for an agreement.

On 28 November, the new Audiovisual Media Service Directive was published, after its final adoption by the Council on 6 November and the European Parliament on 2 October. SAA welcomed that it ensures at least 30% of European works on platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. Member States now have until 19 September 2020 to implement the Directive into national legislation.

SAA is recruiting an intern - join our team!

SAA is recruiting an intern for five months. The internship will provide the opportunity for the intern to be involved and gain real, working, practical experience in the development of European legislation at European Commission, Parliament and Council level. The main tasks will be to support the team with monitoring EU institutions, industry and Member State activities in the fields of copyright and media policy, communications and events organisation. An active knowledge in English is required.

For more information please see the ad. Deadline for application: 7 January 2019. The internship will start on 11 February.

Read SAA's blog

10 Dec: EU Copyright law for the 21st century film and TV industry - Opinion piece by Cécile Despringre published on EurActiv
23 Nov: How to exploit authors’ work without exploiting the author
12 Nov: Royalties for audiovisual authors – a drop in the ocean
18 Oct: How to make European films visible and accessible online?
10 Oct: Transparency: in EU institutions and copyright

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