On September 12th the European Parliament voted in favor of a Copyright Directive by more than 200 votes. The Directive will provide tools to ensure fair remuneration for creators. The landslide vote is clear evidence that the EU intends to apply some controls on the tech giants.
In past months the
GESAC, (European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers) worked tirelessly to present the author’s case to the EU and fight the disinformation campaign led by tech giants.
Among the things the GESAC did to advance the creator’s position was to fund a survey by Harris Interactive on “Copyright and US Tech Giants: What are the expectations in Europe?“ Over 50,000 creators from across Europe responded to the survey.
Survey respondents were asked their opinions of:
1 – The role of U.S. tech giants in Europe?
2 – Whether they believed the U.S. tech giants had more power than the European Union?
3 – Whether the US tech giants compromise the proper functioning of democracy in Europe?
4 – Whether Internet platforms share revenues fairly with the artists and content creators whose works they use?
5 – Whether rules should be implemented by the EU to guarantee creators protection and remuneration?
Among the key findings were:
- 66% of respondents believe internet platforms do not fairly share revenues with content creators whose content appears on their sites, with French (76%) and German (72%) respondents most strongly indicating that current revenue sharing is unfair.
- 81% of respondents believe platforms should more fairly remunerate media organisations, with the highest number of respondents who are completely in favour of legislation to level the playing field located in Germany (43%) and Romania (41%).
The full survey responses are available
here.
The GESAC wishes to thank the many MEPs who have worked tirelessly these past months and years, fighting disinformation, and not bowing down to the enormous pressure exerted by a campaign led by tech giants, and defined by foul play and astroturfing.
The Directive now moves to trialogue and GESAC is confident that this process will lead to a positive result and that this will put a definitive end to the transfer of value that has defined the relationship between culture and tech giants these past years.
Anders Lassen, President of GESAC said: “today is a victory for Europe and its independence from a few tech giants who have profited off outdated legislation to further consolidate unhealthy dominance and to siphon value out of Europe and its creators.”
Véronique Desbrosses, General Manager of GESAC said: “This is a great political victory for authors, for culture, and for European democracy. The European Parliament has chosen to adopt a balanced legislation that will benefit European citizens, businesses, creators, and Europe as a whole.”