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Just like the rest of us, creators deserve to be fairly paid for the work they do. By and large, music fans do appreciate this and are willing to compensate the artists they love for the privilege of copying their work. This philosophy forms the basis of Europe’s private copying framework and – no matter how many wonderful, innovative devices have been developed since its inception – it still holds true. After all, a creator born today is entitled to the same protection as a creator born 50 years ago.

Unfortunately, the importance of private copying to Europe’s creative fabric and  creators is not clear to everyone. In February this year Antonio Vitorino published a series of recommendations that undermine the value of private copying levies, threatening the interests of rights holders (artists) and consumers and privileging the profits of big (largely non-European) business.

We spoke at the time about our disappointment at the recommendations. Now, it’s crucial that the European Commission and member states consider the failings of Mr Vitorino’s work and take a more balanced approach.

In recent months, we have been working hard with numerous like-minded rightsholder organisations to convey to Brussels’ decision-makers why and how Mr Vitorino’s recommendations fall so short of satisfactory.

Last week, the debate picked up pace. First, in the Legal Affairs Committee of The European Parliament there was a presentation of the recommendations. On the same day, in the Competitiveness Council, Mr Vitorino gave a presentation of the recommendations followed by an exchange of views. Although Mr Vitorino’s work was considered to be the start of further discussions on the issue, the majority of members expressed initial reservations on certain issues and suggested waiting for more analytical data as well as the results of the pending cases at the European Court of Justice before starting any legislative work or changing the private copy compensation system.

Finally, on Thursday there was a breakfast hosted by MEP Antonio Masip Hidalgo and organised by Spanish collective rights management societies entitled “Spanish private copying system under scrutiny”. Why the situation in Spain is so harmful not only for rightholders but also for consumers was clearly underlined by a Spanish consumer organisation. (Please see the speech)

Needless to say, it looks set to be a game-changing time for this debate. We’ll keep you posted here on this site.

On June 4 & 5, 700 of the world’s leading creative stakeholders, including authors, industry figures and regulators will gather together in the US’ political hub.

Over the two days of the conference, 95 speakers will mull ways to ensure a fair and sustainable environment for the creative sector. Specific themes include:

• How we can balance the protection of creators with consumers’ access to works
• The opportunities and challenges of the digital era
• The role of policy-makers and copyright legislation in supporting the digital development of the creative sector

This is the fourth year of this prestigious conference that is organised by CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers. GESAC is looking forward to taking part!

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World Creators Summit website

CISAC website

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The Global Repertoire Database (GRD) – the project that will catalogue the world’s music – has announced that it will set up its global headquarters in London and will base its operations centre in Berlin.

The London office, housing corporate functions and business development capabilities is scheduled to open later this year, and will work alongside the current London-based project team in the first instance. The Berlin operations centre will provide registrations and data processing facilities, and may provide a template for further operations centres to support the global operation as it grows.

The GRD is a global, cross-industry collaboration to deliver a single, comprehensive and authoritative representation of the authorship and control of musical works worldwide.

When completed, the main benefits of the GRD will be to create a new and more effective global infrastructure for music rights management, leading to an improved path to music licensing for digital and other music services, and to efficiency benefits for the whole music ecosystem saving extensive costs currently lost to duplication in data processing.

GEMA finished the 2012 business year with a satisfactory result. The sum of the returns for copyright holders from all over the world was €820.2 million. Although this represents a decrease of about 0.6 percent, or €5.3 million, compared to the previous year, income overall has remained at a high level.

The cost unit rate increased slightly to 15.6 percent, compared to 14.9 percent in the previous year. The share of mandates for collection on total income amounted to €175.0 million. Both positive and negative developments could be seen in GEMA’s different sources of income. At a glance, GEMA’s most important sources of collection income