WCS11: Fragmented digital services fracture Europe’s audio-visual rights

The advent of digital distribution should have been a boon for filmmakers. Their works should be getting an automatic global audience, while film’s multi-media elements (video, audio, music) should make their digital files too big for unauthorised downloads, unlike music’s smaller files. The World Copyright Summit session on Creators’ Voice – Fair Deals for Audio-visual Creators painted a more complex picture.

Europe’s audio-visual authors are not getting fully compensated for the constant use of their works online and on mobile. And current copyright laws and industry practices fail to recognise authors’ significant contribution to the sector, the panel’s speakers concluded.

The filmmakers participating in the WCS11 debate were Andrew Chowns, CEO of British TV and film directors copyright organisation Directors UK; Polish film producer Dariusz Jablonski; Society of Audio-visual Authors’ president Gerhard Pfennig from Germany; French screenwriter/director Jean-Paul Salome; and Spanish film director Imanol Uribe.

They exchanged forthright views on the disparity in audio-visual copyright laws across Europe, and how that was hindering authors’ progress on the film world’s stage.

“I thought one of the benefits of digital distribution was the ability to get actual reporting data on the usage of works online, line by line. In practice, it is difficult to get that information in a form that is usable,” Chowns explained.

In Poland, Jablonski, president of Apple Film Production, said the film authors and producers’ union ZAPA does not oversee the use of members’ works online. Consequently, “what could have been a huge opportunity (digitally) has meant a huge piracy problem.”
The situation in Germany has inspired Gerhard Pfennig to suggest that small and medium-sized film directors and producers should join forces, especially when negotiating with powerful broadcasters who want to control all rights.

Moreover, he added, Europe-wide, “we should harmonise all these online rights, so that authors get remunerated every time their works get used”.

Like his co-panellists, Pfennig felt it was about time film authors and other creators removed themselves from the bottom of the digital-copyright totem pole.

They are currently among the last to be considered during negotiations involving international multimedia rights, and that must not be allowed to continue.
Written by Juliana Koranteng