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YouTube’s campaign against Article 13 of the Copyright Directive shows a lack of respect for the EU democratic process of law making. The revisions to the Directive have been under discussion for over four years already and the three main institutions of the European Union have all given their position. The Commission, Council and Parliament have all reached the same conclusion, that there is a value gap, also referred to as a transfer of value, where user upload services are making vast sums of money on creators’ content uploaded by their users, but not paying the right holders who own that content fairly. The result is a serious distortion in the European digital market place which harms right holders, other digital services and citizens. To correct that situation, platforms like YouTube should have to take responsibility for the content they use and monetise, by fairly remunerating their creators and right holders.

Today, the European Commission, the Parliament and the Council reached an agreement on the Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market. This is a major step toward the final adoption of the Directive by the Council and by the European Parliament.

Brussels, 11 February 2019 – Time to improve and adopt the Copyright Directive

Distinguished trilogue negotiators,

We, the undersigned organisations representing authors, performers, and others working in all artistic fields, news agencies, book, press and independent music publishers urge you to work constructively to improve and to adopt the Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market at this week’s trilogue meetings.