News

GESAC follows all discussions related to the cloud with great attention and earlier this month took part in the Forum Europe Cloud Computing conference. The conference gathered European and international experts on cloud computing services as well as high level politicians from Europe and around the world.

One of the sessions was dedicated to copyright and its relation with cloud services. GESAC pointed out that for artists the cloud holds much promise. They have ever more access to markets that are geographically broader and more diverse than ever seemed possible: not only is this good for their careers, is it also good for their livelihoods as it offers greater opportunity for them to generate revenue for the use of their works.

Presented by CISAC, The World Creators Summit (formerly known as World Copyright Summit), will take place in Washington DC at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center on June 4 and 5, 2013 (with an opening cocktail party on June 3 evening). Now in its fourth edition, this biennial event aims at establishing a constructive dialogue, exchange ideas, debate diverse viewpoints and discuss the remedies linked to intellectual property and creative content online with all the stakeholders in the new digital economy, from creators, rights organizations and guilds, to content service providers, broadcasters, telecommunications operators, hardware manufacturers, legal experts and policy-makers.

Marielle Gallo MEP, the rapporteur on the CRM Directive, has now published her working document on the site of the European Parliament. You can read it (in French only, for now) here.

Gesac, the makers of this web platform, will soon comment on the paper here – so stay tuned.

In the mean time, here’s a re-cap of Gesac’s position on the Collective Rights Management Proposal.

You can read Gesac’s full opinion here.

In the first in a series of debriefings, Véronique Desbrosses, general manager of GESAC, shares her thoughts on the policy discussions affecting author societies across Europe. GESAC is the association of European author societies which founded this web platform.

Last week was a busy time for GESAC – what was the highlight for you?  

There were two crucial events for us last week, both in the European Parliament. The first was a lunch debate that brought authors together with the CEOs of their author societies and  MEPs. The aim of the event was to demonstrate the close ties that exist between authors and their societies and to highlight the crucial function that author societies continue to serve.

It also gave the MEPs and assistants present the chance to question the societies on the issues that really concern them.

We were pleased with the interest the Parliament is clearly taking in the issues surrounding the collective rights management dossier, and hope the event clarified any outstanding concerns. You can read more about the event here.

The second highlight was certainly our participation in a series of stakeholder meetings led by Mrs Marielle Gallo, the MEP who is steering the collective rights management proposal through Parliament. You can find the full calendar for the legislation here.