Blog
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Licensing Europe – Will it be a red carpet for global online operators...?
....or will it help European creators reach their audience?Following the European Commission’s orientation debate on copyright on 5th December 2012 and its conclusions on the way forward to modernising copyright in the digital economy (see last post Creators make themselves heard), the Commission published a communication on Content in the Digital Single Market on 18th December. The communication detail its “Licensing Europe” initiative, a stakeholder dialogue whose assigned objective is to deliver, by the end of 2013, practical industry-led solutions.
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Creators make themselves heard
On 28th of November we launched a petition. We were hoping to get 5,000 signatures within a week as the college of Commissioners was meeting on Wednesday 5th December to decide on their future approach on copyright. The meeting was the culmination of months of evident discord within the college of Commissioners on the best approach for Europe to fully take advantage of one of its key assets – its creative industries – in the digital world. President Barroso sought to set things straight and work out the path to the end of the current Commission term. We decided that the creators should be heard on this issue.
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Private copying – sense and sensibility?
1/3 of the world’s population meet daily on networks powered by digital technology, apparently. A large proportion of them do so to listen to music or to watch a video. What is the value of this digital technology without the creations?Well, according to Mr.
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Where to start the authors’ rights balancing act?
The Socialist group of the European Parliament organised a conference last week entitled “Copyright: What is Broken and How to Mend it?”. Such debates are necessary if we are to escape the confrontation we have seen over the last year.
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Remuneration and audiovisual works online
September in Brussels is always a funny thing.
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Creation, Freedom and the Internet
Next week I am going to participate in a breakfast panel entitled “Striking the balance between IP protection and Internet freedom in Europe”. The line-up includes two rightsholder representatives (myself and Sylvie Forbin from Vivendi), a Pirate Party MEP (Mr Engström) and three organisations who promote the freedom of the internet (Marco Pancini from Google, Philippe Aigrain from the Quadrature du Net and Markus Kummer from the Internet Society). I accepted to join this debate because I fundamentally believe that the “balance” mentioned in the title can be found.
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EC Directive Shape Games
Audiovisual Triangles and Musical CirclesBefore the summer the European Commission (finally) published its long awaited proposal for a Directive on Collective Rights Management (here).
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Europe loves cinema?
I traditionally spend a few days in Cannes for the International Film Festival in May to (of course) see films and discover the brilliant selection concocted by Thierry Fremaux, the most trusted cinema lover in the world, but above all to participate in events and meet people at this big international fair.
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The adverse effect of contractual freedom
Part of the problem with Piracy is that many fans don’t feel that they are giving anything to the creator, just to a big faceless company. While this is obviously a simplistic view (most European producers are not that big and I doubt such fans check the size of the company before deciding whether to download legally or not) the reality in the audiovisual sector is that it is doubtful much (if any) of the money handed over will reach the authors.
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Happy World Intellectual Property Day!
There is a “day” for almost everything it seems. The reason why such “days” exist is generally to raise awareness of a particular issue. Such days are a sort of celebration of a cause which is often defended all year round but needs a focal point for the media.So, intellectual property gets its day today as authors’ rights and copyright had there day on 23rd April.
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Stop Buyouts
For the first time, on a European level, the three main organisations representing screenwriters, directors and their collective management organisations came together to call for an end to buyout contracts. This is big news.These are becoming the norm in our industry and, with the future of distribution destined to be online, more and more authors are signing away their exclusive rights against a lump sum and denying them the opportunity to receive some of the revenues from that online exploitation for ever.
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Private copying – dark art or just fair remuneration
At a rather one-sided event in Brussels last week I heard private copying referred to as a “dark art” that almost nobody really understands. A ridiculously biased comment.Let me try and shed light on this “dark art”. When we refer to private copying, we are often shortening from private copying remuneration.
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