Hearing both (or more) sides of a tale
Janine Lorente, the chair of SAA’s board of directors, spoke at the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee hearing on collective rights management on Monday. She was one of 13 stakeholders in a detailed programme which showed just how many different stakeholders will be affected by the directive when it comes into force. Out of the 13 presentations, only Janine looked at the issue from a non-music point of view.
This directive cannot just be looked at from a simplified creator, CMO, user perspective. It has to be looked at within multiple contexts including the different rightholders and sectors that use collective management and the different national approaches. What the Parliament and the Council have to work out is a way of coming up with a text that has the flexibility for the different sectors and legal traditions while fulfilling the key objective of well-functioning societies providing fair remuneration and guarantees to creators so that they can really benefit from their rights . Not an easy task, but essential for the Directive to work for everyone. You can find the presentations here and a video of the full hearing here (Janine Lorente’s presentation starts around the 15:48:30 time mark).