Who are Europe’s audiovisual authors ?
Europe is in the process of changing legislation on authors’ rights / copyright in Europe.
The texts refer to the need for sector specific solutions for authors in different sectors. This is also the starting point for SAA’s infographic on audiovisual authors’ remuneration (available in English, French, German and Spanish with a video here). The infographic focuses on screenwriters and directors but, as is often the case in Europe, the situation is a little bit more complicated than that. So who are the authors of an audiovisual work?
In the countries where SAA has members, this means that directors, screenwriters and music composers are always audiovisual authors. Given that composers have their rights managed by music societies, SAA focusses on the needs of:
But, as shown above, in some countries other contributors, e.g. the director of photography or the costume designer can be an audiovisual author too.
Together, SAA’s members manage rights for
Not only are these the people behind our favourite films, documentaries and TV series, but they are also at the source of Europe’s creativity as well as its cultural and linguistic diversity. Some examples:
See SAA’s infographic [FR, ES], and keep an eye on this blog to find out more about the working lives of audiovisual authors and the challenges they face.
JT