SAA Conference - Audiovisual authors online - seizing the digital revolution - 29th November

This White Paper presented for the first  time a summary of who audiovisual authors are in the different European countries as well as what their collective management organisations do for them.  It also presented SAA’s proposal for guaranteeing that the remuneration of these audiovisual authors is linked to the success of their works in the fast developing online world.

We did some drum banging to raise awareness of our proposal but we didn’t want to sit in the corner on our own – we wanted to hear what other actors in the sector had to say and to see how we could work together to come up with a concrete legislative solution that help audiovisual authors get their works out there while guaranteeing their remuneration.  All these conversation culminated in the publication of our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ - here) document earlier this month. We obviously did something right with the publication of our White Paper as it was picked up by the European Commission as the source for a couple of questions on authors’ remuneration in the Green Paper on the online distributions of audiovisual works (here).  By the end of the week the EC’s consultation on the online distribution of audiovisual works will be closed.  Obviously the work doesn’t stop there though.  The European Parliament has already chosen the rapporteur for a report on the same subject ... The next date for your diaries is 29^th November when we will be holding a conference in the afternoon entitled “Audiovisual authors online - seizing the digital revolution. Getting works out and remuneration in”.  This will be followed in the evening by a screening of the winner of the LUX prize (more info here) which will be announced later this week. We wanted to bring together our White Paper, the FAQ and the actors from the sector as well as policy makers to see if we have been able to reach some consensus on our proposal.  We’re also honoured to have the support of four MEPs from four different countries and political groups, which I think sends its own message about the importance across the political spectrum of audiovisual authors being fairly remunerated for their work in the digital era. The conference will be split into a few different parts and I will be going into a little bit more detail on each of those here in the next couple of weeks.  We’ll also be announcing speakers very soon so stay tuned. In the meantime, however you can already register for the conference here. CD