With Czech Republic taking over presidency of the European Union, AEPO-ARTIS wrote an open letter to the Czech President with the goal to draw attention to the important issue of improving performer’s rights.

Read the full letter below.

Dear President,

Dear Mr Zeman,

In the next six months, the Czech Republic will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union. We are grateful for the ambitious programme and we are confident that the Czech Republic will achieve its goals, especially when it comes to culture.

AEPO-ARTIS is a non-profit making organisation that represents 37 European performers’ collective management organisations from 27 different countries, including the Czech organisation INTERGRAM. The number of performers, from the audio and audiovisual sector, represented by our 37 member organizations can be estimated at 650,000.

We are happy to read that the Czech Presidency will strive to continue to prioritize the status of the artist. The protection of individual artists is the absolute starting point of a vibrant and strong culture. And the intellectual property rights of our individual artists are central to this.

In its October 2021 resolution on the situation of the artist, the European Parliament identified the so-called Copyright Directive (Directive 2019/790) as crucial for the recovery of the cultural sector and pleaded for its immediate implementation by all Member States, in particular to ‘guarantee fair, appropriate and proportionate remuneration for authors and performers.’

This directive was adopted by the European institutions in April 2019 as one of the pillars for a fair digital single market. However, half of the Members States, including the Czech Republic, still have to implement this directive.

Recently the Commission initiated the second step in the infringement procedure against the Member States that will have to implement during your Presidency and will look to the Czech Republic for guidance. Since the Czech draft is an example of a literal transposition, we ask you to review this approach and take a different path together with the other Member States.

The choice for a literal transposition by means of a mere copy/paste of the directive into national legislation is a choice against performers and a curtailment of their possibilities to make a living out of the online exploitation of their work.

The directive (recitals 3, 72-73) is very clear in the fact that the new online exploitation possibilities should be a source of income for all right holders. It emphasises the need to adapt and supplement the existing Union copyright framework, while keeping a high level of protection of copyright and related rights in the digital environment.

However, rather than offering new concrete rules, the European legislator refers to the balance that it has achieved through years of harmonization via various copyright directives and urges Member States to transpose this balance to the online environment. To this extent, articles 17 and 18 both introduce pro-active obligations and provide that “Member States shall” provide the mechanisms to guarantee the effectiveness of the principles.

Article 18 introduces the principle of an appropriate and proportionate remuneration for performers when they transfer their exclusive rights. In its resolution on the status of the artist, the EU Parliament stated that the implementation of this article must be accompanied by the introduction of effective mechanisms. AEPO-ARTIS is convinced that this objective can only be achieved when performers are protected with an unwaivable remuneration right. This mechanism already exists in all EU Member States for certain exploitations, but only a few have made it applicable to the making available right, which is the legal basis for the majority of online exploitations.

Article 17 obliges Member States to ensure that large platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and TikTok no longer hide behind the so-called safe harbour of the e-commerce directive. This article also does not provide any guarantee that revenues that result from this new obligation to pay, will be shared with the performers. It is up to the Member States to provide this. Here too, the introduction of an unwaivable remuneration right that performers can obtain through their collective management organisations is the best – if not the only – solution to guarantee that performers receive an appropriate and proportionate remuneration.

Even though it might look like the quickest way to avoid further steps in the infringement procedure, a literal implementation of these articles will not change the reality for European performers at all. The need for urgent transposition must not come at the expense of protecting the performers who are the face of our cultural sector.

Transposition must be accompanied by additional specific measures that will effectively achieve the goal of the relevant articles. It must be remembered that the Commission will carry out a conformity check to ensure that all Member States have transposed the directive in a way which is compliant with the obligations the directive creates. Member States that do not include these additional specific measures may fail this conformity check and will leave themselves open to future infringement proceedings from the European Commission.

We hope that the Czech Presidency will succeed in guiding all Member States towards a correct transposition of the directive in the next six months, starting with a correct implementation in your own country.

An example of a country which has correctly introduced the necessary additional specific measures and has therefore properly implemented the directive (on 16 June 2022) is Belgium. It rightly resisted pressure to opt for a literal transposition and although this meant that it failed to respect the deadline for implementation, it succeeded in both improving the rights of performers and complying with the requirements of the directive. In brief, it has achieved an effective and compliant transposition of the directive and received the full support of the different artist communities throughout Europe.

Finally, we hope that during your presidency the EU can work on eliminating the last existing discriminations between actors and musicians. Firstly, by extending the term of protection for audiovisual performances to 70 years in the context of the revision of Directive 2011/77. There is no explanation whatsoever why audiovisual performances are still protected for only 50 years, while musical performances can count on 70 years. Secondly, by achieving a breakthrough in the ratification of the Beijing treaty by the European Union.

For musicians and actors, the digital environment of on-demand and streaming is still the place where they are least protected. During your presidency they must not be forgotten as a category of digital stakeholders that need economic protection. 

Provide those who give European culture a face, with the economic protection they deserve. Not with words, but with actions. Give European artists a digital future by implementing the Copyright Directive with the same dedication and passion they make your culture! And without allowing any further discrimination to exist.

On behalf of every musician and actor whose performance you have ever appreciated. 

Ioan KAES

General-Secretary

With France taking over presidency of the European Union and the ambitious programme that President Emmanuel Macron has presented to the Parliament in Strasbourg, AEPO-ARTIS wrote an open letter to the French President with the goal to draw attention to the important issue of improving performer’s rights.

Read the full letter below, for the French version of the letter please see here.

Dear Mr President,

In the next six months, France will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union. We are grateful for the ambitious programme that you have presented to the Parliament in Strasbourg. We are confident that France will achieve its goals, especially when it comes to culture.

But if a humane Europe that takes pride in its culture is one of the key ambitions of the French programme and if providing economic protection for all digital stakeholders is at the core of your strategy, then the protection of the individual artists is the absolute starting point.

AEPO-ARTIS is a non-profit making organisation that represents 37 European performers collective management organisations from 27 different countries, including the French organisations ADAMI and SPEDIDAM. The number of performers, from the audio and audiovisual sector, represented by our 37 member organisations can be estimated at 650,000.

The next six months are crucial for our performers. The cultural sector has been identified as one of the sectors most affected by the COVID pandemic, and we are therefore grateful for the initiatives that Europe has already taken to accelerate the recovery of this sector. We expect France to lead Europe in continuing this work during the next six months.

We are happy to read that your program harks back to the 2017 sovereignty agenda in which copyright reform formed one of the pillars of a fair digital single market. This copyright reform was already concluded by Europe in 2019 with the adoption of the Copyright Directive and the Directive on online broadcasting.

However, most members states still have to implement these directives.

In its October resolution on the situation of artists, the European Parliament identified these directives as crucial for the recovery of the cultural sector and pleaded for its immediate implementation by all Member States, in particular to ‘guarantee fair, appropriate and proportionate remuneration for authors and performers.’

And this is where we need your help. For musicians and actors, the digital environment of on-demand and streaming is still the place where they are least protected. During your presidency they must not be forgotten as a category of digital stakeholders that need economic protection.

While during the pandemic our actors’ and musicians’ beloved stages were closed, their music and films were consulted online en masse. If we come through this crisis with a sound mind, it will in large part due to their – virtual – support.

We hope that the French Presidency will succeed in guiding all member states towards a correct transposition of the Copyright Directive, in particular its article 18. The mere copy-paste of the wording of this article, which several member states have done so far, does not provide any tangible added value for our many musicians and actors. As the Parliament has stated in its resolution, implementation must be accompanied by the introduction of effective mechanisms that guarantee appropriate and proportionate remuneration.

This is all the more true with regard to article 17 on the use of musical and audiovisual works by online platforms. Platform accountability is currently the subject of debates about the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, but for our performers article 17 of the Copyright Directive is an equally important provision, if not more important. It aims to end the so-called value gap that existed between these platforms and the cultural industries that provide content. However, for performers the value gap still exists. With the exception of Germany and Spain, no country has yet succeeded in ensuring that the transposition of this provision is accompanied by an effective mechanism that guarantees that the new flows of money resulting from platform accountability bring about effective appropriate and proportionate remuneration for performers.

Finally, we hope that during your presidency the EU can work on eliminating the last existing discriminations between actors and musicians. Firstly, by extending the term of protection for audiovisual performances to 70 years in the context of the revision of Directive 2011/77. There is no explanation whatsoever why audiovisual performances are still protected for only 50 years, while musical performances can count on 70 years. Secondly, we hope that France can achieve a breakthrough in the ratification of the Beijing treaty by the European Union. France has almost taken all the necessary steps to ratify this paramount treaty. We hope that you will complete this procedure as a country and also succeed in convincing Europe to follow suit.

Performers are the face of European culture. Help them to a digital future by implementing the Copyright Directive with the same dedication and passion they make our culture!

On behalf of every performer whose work you have ever appreciated.

Most respectfully,

Ioan KAES
General-Secretary

In 2019 after long negotiations, the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market was adopted. Article 18 of this Directive obliges Member States to ensure that authors and performers receive fair and proportionate remuneration from the exploitation of their work, including in the online environment. It is however for the Member States to put in place the necessary mechanisms to ensure that such remuneration is effectively granted to authors and performers.

The transposition of the Directive has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As Member States resume discussions on how best to implement the Directive, we urge members of the European Parliament to follow very closely this debate at national level.

The European Parliament fought very hard in the negotiations leading to the 2019 Copyright Directive for a positive change that would guarantee that performers can make a living from the exploitation of their performances, including via digital platforms.

Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic, with tens of thousands of performers receiving close to nothing as European audiences massively turned to streaming content, has demonstrated how fragile the current system is and how much this provision must be given full meaning in practice.
We therefore call on MEPs to ensure that Member States will deliver an effective implementation of article 18, which will guarantee that performers are at last fairly remunerated in the digital environment.

Signed:

Tilo Gerlach, President AEPO-ARTIS

Dominick Luquer, General Secretary FIA

Benoît Machuel, General Secretary FIM

Nacho Garcia Vega, President IAO

The open letter is available here:

Open Letter to the European Parliament: Performers call on MEPs to ensure that their efforts to guarantee fair remuneration, including from online exploitation, are not “lost in transposition”.

AEPO-ARTIS joined a group of 90 organisations from across Europe’s cultural and creative sectors in writing to the President of the European Council and Member States representatives, ahead of the European Council discussions on the future EU budget:

Dear President of the European Council, Dear Member States representatives,

We are writing as a group of 90 organisations from across Europe’s cultural and creative sectors ahead of the European Council discussions on the future EU budget.

At this key juncture of the negotiations on a future EU Multi-Financial Framework (2021-2027), we call on you to support the European Parliament’s proposed budget for the Creative Europe Programme 2021-20271, the only EU framework Programme dedicated to cultural and creative
sectors.

Today, Creative Europe represents a mere 0,15% of the overall EU Budget. This is by no means proportionate to our sectors’ contribution to the EU economy, which stands at €509bn in value added to GDP and over 12 million full-time jobs (7.5 % of the EU’s work force).

Our culture and our talents support artistic freedom and media pluralism, which are crucial for maintaining open, inclusive and creative societies. Yet, culture is low on the EU’s political agenda, and these sectors remain structurally underfinanced. The financing gap for Europe’s cultural and creative SMEs alone is estimated to be somewhere between €8bn and €13bn.

This is why we welcome the European Parliament’s proposal to increase the Creative Europe budget to €2.8bn. We call on the Council to support this much-needed boost to the future of Europe’s arts, culture and heritage, and the values they promote.

The contribution of Europe’s cultural and creative sectors to the social, economic and artistic development of Europe fully justifies the added value of EU investment in culture.

Our common values and our unique cultural diversity lie at the center of our collective European project and are the best ambassadors for the EU’s global influence in the world.

Investing in our culture is investing in our future. Let’s show a high level of ambition and shape a brighter future for Europe.

The open letter is available here: Open letter to EU leaders from Europe’s cultural and creative sectors

For more information:
Contact person: Nicole Schulze (0487 25 09 51)
Our website: http://www.fair-internet.eu
To follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/FairInternet4P

Open Letter to President Juncker: European Commission yet again fails to listen to the legitimate demands of performers in Europe

Dear President Juncker,

At a critical time for the future of copyright in the EU, the FAIR INTERNET campaign partners, jointly representing over 500.000 professional performers in Europe (singers, musicians, dancers, actors among others), wish to express their disappointment with respect to the European Commission’s continuous lack of support for performers and their legitimate expectations regarding their remuneration for the online distribution of their performances.

Since the adoption in 2001 of the Information Society Directive, the value created by the audiovisual and music industries via online services has not truly benefitted performers, although they are at the root of all the music recordings and audiovisual works that are made available online.

Regretfully, the European Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the DSM, despite its knowledge of performers’ situation and the clear commitment made in the 2015 Digital Agenda, puts forward very limited, after-the-fact provisions that may only redress individual situations and are likely to benefit only a few high profile performers who are already in a position to negotiate better contract terms.

Article -14 adopted by the EU Parliament in September 2018 provides all performers with a right to be paid a fair and proportional remuneration for all modes of exploitation, including for on-demand uses, and encourages Member States to achieve this aim also by way of statutory remuneration mechanisms. This fundamental principle clarifies that the remuneration of performers must be consistent with all revenues derived from the exploitation of their work and that such coherence may, where deemed appropriate, also be guaranteed by mechanisms that can counter the inherently weak bargaining power of individual performers.

We were disheartened to witness the Commission’s lack of support for performers’ in Europe, as it put on the trilogue negotiating table a so-called “exploratory compromise” regarding article -14 of the European Parliament. This document, at best, promotes the status quo and, at worst, suggests that lump-sum payments, such as those typically involved in blanket licenses and buy-out contracts, may de facto be deemed “fair and proportionate” – possibly denying all those agreements even the occasional benefit of articles 14 to 16.

This is simply not acceptable.

We urge the European Commission to support performers who remain routinely subject to the worse possible contractual practices, and resolutely back article -14 of the European Parliament.

Our organisations will not be able to support the Directive unless it provides a meaningful change to the current EU copyright and contract law to the benefit of performers.

We cannot miss out on this legislative reform. Waiting another 20 years is not an option.

Yours sincerely,

Xavier Blanc, General Secretary AEPO-ARTIS
Dominick Luquer, General Secretary FIA
Benoît Machuel, General Secretary FIM
Nacho Garcia Vega, President IAO

The open letter is available here: Open letter to President Juncker

On 4 June 2018, a number of European performers and audiovisual authors released the following open letter addressed to Members of the Legal Affairs committee of the European Parliament:

Brussels, 4 June 2018

Dear Member of the Legal Affairs committee,

Re: Copyright Directive: Open letter from performers and audiovisual authors

We came to Strasbourg a few days ago to discuss the draft Copyright Directive and fair remuneration of performers and audiovisual authors. We learnt that very little time is left before decisions are taken on the final compromise amendments to be voted on in committee in June.

This is why we are now writing to you. We urge you to speak up for all of us musicians, singers, actors, dansers, screenwriters and directors. The time is now! Not in 10 or 20 years. But now!

Streaming and downloading platforms are no longer part of an emerging market, but it is how most people now enjoy listening to music or watching films or series.

Whilst the Internet is a fantastic tool for us musicians, actors, screenwriters and directors, the system we operate in is rotten. It is no longer working.

With producers and now also online platforms such as Netflix and Spotify dominating the market, no one can with sincerity still talk about contractual freedom. There is no such thing.

Whilst legislation did protect us in the analogue world guaranteeing that we are paid fairly, it does not when the same music recording, series or film is streamed or downloaded. How can this be seen as fair? It is not.

What we do is our passion but it must also be able to pay the bills. Only if we are able to make a decent living from our work, can we keep on creating. But too many of us are not able to make ends meet anymore.

It is not just worrying for us as experienced performers and audiovisual authors. The current situation also discourages new young talent from entering the creative arts. The future of European culture does not look bright if this is not addressed.

This is why we are calling on you to upgrade current EU law, taking what is working for us in the analogue world and adapting it to the digital one, namely by introducing an unwaivable remuneration right, paid by the online platforms and subject to collective management into the draft EU Copyright Directive.

The desperate situation of performers and audiovisual authors cannot be fixed with transparency and a contract adjustment mechanism alone.

We count on your support to turn things around. This is a once in at least a decade opportunity to make things right. Please raise your voice ahead of this week’s meeting of the rapporteur and shadows.

Yours sincerely,

Costa-Gavras, Greek-born French screenwriter and director
Murray Head, British musician and actor
Julie Bertuccelli, French screenwriter and director
Jochen Greve, German screenwriter
Hans Werner Meyer, German actor
Jean-Jacques Milteau, French musician
Paola Randi, Italian director and screenwriter
Johan Van Assche, Belgian actor and director
Nacho Garcia Vega, Spanish musician and songwriter

The open letter is available for download here: Open Letter