Creators tell the EU that enough is enough

In July, the European Commission received a letter from 1000 European composers, authors, etc. demanding that the EU allow creators of cultural content to receive their rightful share of the digital economy. Among those addressing the "transfer of value" problem are Jan Garbarek, Nico&Vinz, David Guetta and Imogen Heap.

The European Commission is under increasing pressure after receiving several letters from various parts of the cultural sector in Europe this summer. The initiative for one of the letters came from TONO and our European sister societies' lobby organization in Brussels, Gesac. The letter calls on the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker to quickly find a solution that will provide a fair financial distribution in the European digital economy.

– On 20 July, a meeting was held between the Commissioners at the residence of EU Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip, where copyright and the “transfer of value” issue were discussed. Via Gesac, TONO has received signals that we can finally, after several years of struggle, see a positive development for copyright holders in the work. The letter has hopefully contributed to the Commissioners realizing the importance of resolving this issue, as they now enter a critical final phase in the work of developing the new European copyright regime, says TONO’s CEO Cato Strøm. He says that TONO has also sent the aforementioned letter to the Norwegian Ministry of Culture.

"Safe harbor"
The background to the letter is that internet giants claim that copyright obligations do not apply to them, and hide behind so-called safe harbor exceptions to avoid paying creators and rights holders fairly. This harms the entire creative ecosystem – composers and songwriters, authors, directors, screenwriters, photographers, sculptors, visual artists and so on. The letter states that the dominant services in the market, such as YouTube, are based on uploaded or aggregated content, while at the same time providing no or only a small financial return to rights holders. This causes great damage to the market value of creative works.

The Norwegian creators who have signed the letter are Bendik Hofseth, Bugge Wesseltoft, Ine Hoem, Sigurd Wongraven, Ingrid Kindem, Jan Garbarek, Jesper Borgen, Rita Engedalen, Nicolay Sereba, Vincent Dery, as well as music publisher Kai Robøle.

You can also contribute
There is also a petition campaign underway where Gesac, TONO and our other sister societies hope to collect a large number of signatures. We would like you, as a TONO member, to contribute. You can do so by filling out the form found at  www.makeinternetfair.euThe campaign will be open for a couple more weeks, so be quick.

Read more about the campaign here 

Read the letter, and the list of signatures, by clicking here (pdf document)