News

EMI publishes position paper on Digital Single Market Strategy

The European Movement International (EMI), which GESAC is a member of, published its policy position paper on the Digital Single Market Strategy (DSMS) this week. DSMS, one of the European Commission’s (EC) priorities, is welcomed by EMI as an opportunity to create jobs and ensure growth in Europe. However, EMI cautions EC to take into account a number of factors to guarantee a fully functioning Digital Single Market that benefits all Europeans.

For instance, EMI calls on the Commission to foster sustainable growth in the cultural and creative industries which have proved their resilience to the economic crisis and are well placed to grow further. An important focus should also be to develop a modernized copyright framework that guarantees the rights of all stakeholders in order to foster European cultural diversity. The document addresses the current transfer of value in the market vis-à-vis online intermediaries who unjustly invoke the Safe Harbour non-liability provisions of the e-Commerce Directive for copyright protected content.

Read the full policy position paper here.

Read the press release here.

Read the Euractiv opinion piece by EMI vice-President MEP Eva Paunova here.

 

About EMI:

The European Movement is a network of organisations that has mobilised citizens and advocated for a democratic, federal and enlarged union since 1948. It is an international organisation open to all political, economic, social and cultural trends in civil society. Its objective is to contribute to the establishment of a united, federal Europe founded on the principles of peace, democracy, liberty, solidarity, and respect for basic human rights.

Find out more at europeanmovement.eu

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Check out some key figures for GESAC members in 2014!

The GESAC numbers for 2014 have been bundled into a new infographic.

Here are some key figures from our 33 authors’ societies:

– we represent about 1 million creators and rights holders
– we collected about €5 billion
– we distributed about €4.3 billion
– our average cost was 12.8%

Check out all the numbers 

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Estonian society EAÜ becomes latest GESAC member

The latest authors’ society to join GESAC is the Estonian author’s society Eesti Autorite Ühing, or EAÜ. It was established in 1991, succeeding to its predecessor that had been established in 1932.

EAÜ represents about 4000 Estonian composers, lyricists, arrangers and music publishers. It collects and distributes royalties to music authors and publishers for public performances. The administration of reproduction rights of musical works and licensing of rights in musical works for online use in Estonia is managed by EAÜ in cooperation with NCB and NMP.

EAÜ also represents more than 200 Estonian authors of visual arts for whom it collects and distributes royalties for reproduction, communication to the public by TV, retransmission by cable network and droit de suite. Moreover, in cooperation with the Estonian Association of Audiovisual Authors, EAÜ has the right to represent audiovisual authors in Estonia.

GESAC warmly welcomes EAÜ!

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GESAC welcomes the Commission’s intention to rebalance the transfer of value

On the Communication by the Commission “Towards a modern, more European copyright framework”

 In the Communication adopted today, the Commission announced its ambition to rebalance the harmful transfer of value that currently defines the digital market for cultural content. A functioning market is one that includes those making the works. Today, many platform services claim to merely host user uploaded content or aggregate existing works. They often poorly, if at all, remunerate the creators whose works their business models are based on. GESAC welcomes the intention of the Commission to address this issue as a priority in its legislative initiative on copyright in 2016.

Nowadays, music, audiovisual works, photos, and images of visual art works are mostly available and shared through platform services like YouTube, Dailymotion, SoundCloud or Facebook. In fact, YouTube alone is the most popular access route to music in Europe. These platform services claim to be mere technical intermediaries and thus not liable for the copyright relevant content they provide access to.

This wrongful interpretation of the current law is harming creators, leading to market distortions that disadvantage legitimate online services like Spotify, Deezer or iTunes, and driving down the overall value of cultural content in the online environment. This is one of the most important issues for creators as regards their future in the digital market and requires a solution in the forthcoming copyright review.

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