Letter to the Polish Minister of Culture on implementing the DSM Directive

With this letter, the SAA would like to raise its upmost concerns regarding the draft law of 14 February 2024 in respect of the authors’ remuneration for the on-demand/online uses of their works and express its full support to the Polish audiovisual authors regarding the ongoing process of the implementation of the DSM Directive.

As of today, all Member States but Poland have fully transposed the DSM Directive into national law. It has been already almost 5 years since the Directive came into force and 3 years since the transposition deadline for the Member States has marched. This would not be an issue if this additional time would have been used to deliver substantial changes strengthening the position of authors as per the objective of Chapter 3 of the DSM Directive. As we say in the SAA, it is better to have a late but effective implementation than an early and toothless one. However, we were surprised to hear that the draft law of 14 February 2024 implementing the DSM Directive in Poland was lacking the necessary provisions to ensure fair remuneration to authors for the on-demand/online uses of audiovisual works.

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For all the above reasons, on behalf of SAA and over 167,000 European screenwriters and directors, we respectfully ask you to amend the draft bill to extend the existing statutory right to remuneration for audiovisual authors to the on-demand/online exploitation of their works. Any other proposal would fail to adjust authors’ remuneration to the modern modes of distribution of works and technological developments, including video-on-demand platforms, which was the objective of the directive. We call on the responsible authorities in Poland to take a pro-active approach and transpose the DSM Directive providing for efficient mechanisms that ensure audiovisual authors a right to appropriate and proportionate remuneration for the exploitation of their works and performances on all media and for every use.

Poland must now implement the DSM Directive in the right way, allowing audiovisual authors the obvious: to be able to make a living out of their works. We remain at your disposal to share with you our European experience of audiovisual authors’ rights and remuneration further if needed.

Download the full letter below.