Lobbying rush to save rights payments
Unions are fighting off a damaging amendment to new European copyright rules.
The amendment to the Copyright Directive, which will prevent writers, performers, and directors from negotiating royalty payments, was tabled only days before European MPs were due to vote on the new law.
BECTU, along with other unions including the Writers' Guild, and UK-based copyright organisations, is mounting a last minute lobbying effort to persuade members of the European Parliament to vote against the amendement on February 14.
Campaigners fear that if the amendment is incorporated in the Directive, broadcasting organisations across Europe will be able to cut payments that are made for use of archive material. At present, TV and radio channels have to negotiate payments to re-run old programmes with individual rights owners or with the many copyright collection associations that have been set up.
The amendment would allow broadcasters to use their archives to launch new services, including digital video on demand, without any need to agree royalty payments with the workers who helped to create the programmes.
Although performers and rightsholders would be entitled to "equitable remuneration" from producers, they would have no right to refuse permission for their programmes to be re-run, and no ability to negotiate improved payments.
Last-minute lobbying activities were expected to include an e-mail offensive to brief Members of the European Parliament on the devastating impact that the amendment would have on creative workers. The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) was also planning to send a delegation to the plenary meeting of Parliament in Strasbourg on February 14.
Text of proposed amendment due to be presented to the European Parliament on February 14 2001.
Amendment 11
NEW ARTICLE:
Article 5(3)(q)
"to ensure, by such legal means as a strictly limited non-voluntary licence or a legal presumption, that broadcasting organisations are entitled to use, or to authorise others to use, their own past archive productions produced or commissioned and financed by them under their own editorial control for new broadcasting or "on-demand" services. Such use shall be subject to payment by the television or radio producer of equitable remuneration, as appropriate, to authors, performers or other rightsholders who contributed to the production."
Justification:
This amendment is a simplified version of an amendment adopted by Parliament on first reading. It is only to be expected that contractual agreements will prove impossible or elusive in this area. Yet European broadcasting organisations maintain extensive archives of their past radio and TV programmes going right back to the first days of broadcasting. Such archives provide a unique view of a country's political, social and cultural life. They should therefore, be made accessible to the public via the new possibilities of audio-visual communication.