Rightholders provide further comments regarding the Copyright Directive

 

6 October 2017

In April 2017, music creators and rightsholders (including CIAM, ESCA, and PACSA) submitted their concerns regarding the proposed Copyright Directive.  This letter was largely in support of the monitoring obligations proposed in Article 13 by encouraging the amendment of existing safe harbour provisions. However, some concerns about the transparency provisions provided in Article 14 were raised, noting particularly that the risks inherent in this provision require the introduction of a rights reversion mechanism, as proposed by ECSA. Following this, a further joint statement has now been issued by a variety of authors (including Premier League, EuroConema, and GESAC) in objection to the draft opinion issued by the IMCO.  The draft opinion, which encouraged the preservation of existing safe harbour provisions, has been accused by rightholders of “exacerbat[ing] rather than solv[ing] the Value Gap/Transfer of Value problem”. The issue of the existence of a “value gap” was investigated in a paper delivered to (but not published by) the European Commission. Previous rightsholder submissions include comments raised by audiovisual authors in November 2016, and a press release by a group of European screenwriters and directors in support of proposed fair remuneration amendments. From the music industry, a letter of support from the International Artist Organisation of Music was submitted in February 2016 (encouraging the review of fair remuneration as proposed in a communication by the Commission in December 2015), and also in solidarity with an open letter previously submitted by the Independent Music Companies Association in August 2014. A further letter from the International Artist Organisation was submitted to the European Commission in June 2016, emphasising their support of proposals to close the “value gap”.