TONO's CEO Cato Strøm has written an editorial that can be read in Dagsavisen today. He points out in the article that large media platforms must be required to share a fair share of the income they have from music and other creative content with creators. On September 12, the EU Parliament will vote on a new copyright directive for the digital field. It is a moment of truth for music creators.
/ 28/08/2018 / Willy MartinsenTONO's CEO Cato Strøm has written an editorial that can be read in Dagsavisen today. He points out in the article that large media platforms must be required to share a fair share of the income they have from music and other creative content with creators. On September 12, the EU Parliament will vote on a new copyright directive for the digital field. It is a moment of truth for music creators.
Read the editorial at Dagsavisen by clicking here
You can also read the text here:
Should Facebook, Google and other companies behind digital media platforms be able to continue to earn astronomical revenues from music and other authors' and artists' content, without sharing a fair share with those who created the content? That is one of the key points when the EU Parliament votes on the wording of the new Copyright Directive on September 12th.
The issue the EU is now facing is the same one that the Storting discussed this spring in connection with the consideration of the new Copyright Act. Norway is at the top of the world in terms of streaming per capita, and creators and artists in our territory are therefore vulnerable to the value gap between the earnings of tech companies and their own wallets. A unanimous Storting decided to address the following request to the government, following a proposal from the Storting's Family and Culture Committee:
"The Storting asks the government to continuously consider whether Norwegian authorities can issue rules that ensure that providers of online services that store and make available large amounts of works and other creative content uploaded by users must contribute to ensuring that copyright holders receive remuneration for such use of their material."
The vote on the proposed copyright directive in the EU Parliament on July 5th unfortunately did not go the way of music creators and other authors and artists, and should therefore be a disappointment for the Norwegian legislator.
The text presented to the European Parliament was the result of two years of work, with final approval in the European Commission's Legal Affairs Committee on June 20. The text, which shifted responsibility for the content shared on the services from users to the services, and which required the companies behind the services to enter into agreements with copyright holders, received 41 votes, too few to ensure further consideration in the EU system towards a final directive.
Although the vote was a great disappointment for Europe's creators and artists in all cultural fields, we have reason to believe that MEPs need more time to deal with a matter of such great and fundamental importance. A deadline of 5 September has been set for MEPs to propose adjustments to the existing directive text, with a new vote on 12 September.
The vote will have a decisive impact on the future framework conditions for European composers, songwriters, lyricists and other creators and performers in the creative and artistic sectors, and their opportunities to make a living from creating new works and performances. For far too many years, they have been powerless against the large media platforms with user-generated content. The companies behind these commercial services have constantly claimed that they have no responsibility for the content that users upload and consume, by referring to the EU's e-commerce directive from 2001, a directive that has lost its relevance in this area after almost 20 years with a revolutionized user pattern that was unimaginable 20 years ago when the directive was prepared. The purpose at the time was primarily to exempt network providers from liability for what users used their cables for.
We believe, as does the European Commission's Legal Affairs Committee, that media platforms now have an active role in making protected intellectual property available to the public. It is also clear that the services have enormous revenues from music.
In 2015, the consulting firm Roland Berger analyzed the economic value that culture and creative content represent for digital platform services. One of the conclusions in the report “Cultural content in the online environment: Analyzing the value transfer in Europe” was that about 52 percent of Facebook’s revenue comes from creative and artistic content. The world’s largest music service, YouTube, has earned a large number of billions on other people’s content over the past few years. Only crumbs go to those who have created the content. This imbalance must be corrected.
Tech companies and their allies have spent huge sums of money in the run-up to the EU referendum in July to influence public opinion and members of the European Parliament. According to Billboard and a wide range of other music industry media outlets, the UK Music trade association, after a thorough review of the EU's transparency register, has found that Google has spent €31 million on lobbying to oppose changes to copyright law. We have seen that major campaigns, led by tech companies, Wikipedia, online activists and pirate parties, have been based on exaggerated misinterpretations of the law and outright falsehoods.
It has been argued that the directive would result in a ban on the sharing of "memes" (images with short, pointed messages) and that the introduction of normal copyright principles in practice is censorship of the internet and an attack on freedom of expression. Both are false. Memes would normally be considered parodies, quotes and excerpts, and are thus permitted under normal copyright rules, and thus not relevant here.
To claim that artists, who live off their freedom of expression both artistically and financially, would want to attack freedom of expression is absurd in itself. Synth pioneer, composer and president of the copyright organizations' umbrella organization CISAC, Jean-Michel Jarre, has called the claim "scandalous."
In a digital age, intangible assets are among the main pillars of the European economy. A report prepared by the consulting company EY in 2014 shows that the cultural and creative sector is Europe's third largest industry, and that it accounts for 4,2 percent of the EU's gross domestic product. The sector has 7 million jobs – 2,5 times more than the automotive industry. If this sector is to be a driver of the European economy in the future, we depend on good protection of intellectual property. This includes the copyright principles of fair payment for use. It does not benefit Europe that the gigantic revenues of media platforms, generated by, among other things, intangible content, end up in the coffers of tech companies in tax-friendly territories.
The European Parliament must now show courage and take the necessary steps to close the value gap that music creators and other artistic groups have had to live with for far too long. The vote on September 12 will be a moment of truth for music creators around the world.