CIAM: The world's music creators urge the European Institutions to support culture and creators when finalising the new Copyright Directive

Paris, 12 December 2018 - CIAM, the International Council of Music Creators, representing over 4 million music creators worldwide awaits the outcome of the inter-institutional negotiations on the Copyright Directive.

As creators of music we actively support Article 13, together with all stakeholders in the creative and cultural sectors. We all recognise the importance of online services concluding fair licences and thus put an end to the unfair transfer of value that benefits a few big online services to the detriment of creators and their partners.

On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament took a strong position in favour of Article 13 in order to restore a fair balance between creators and rightsholders on one hand, and a few big dominant platforms on the other hand. It also provided the right solutions to improve the position of creators in their relationship with their contractual counterparts. In particular, Articles 14 to 16A, have the potential to be of enormous benefit to creators, as they would:

• Enshrine obligations of transparency upon our commercial partners when they are accounting to us
• Enable creators to revisit the remuneration provisions within contracts where our partners have been unfairly and disproportionately enriched by exploitation of our works
• Provide an affordable and accessible dispute resolution framework for authors and performers
• Give authors a right of revocation in cases where their contractual counterparts do not exploit their works properly. Such a provision would boost the availability of creative works and benefit not only authors but also consumers and access to cultural diversity.

By adopting such provisions, the European Parliament made a clear commitment to creators and cultural diversity. Members of the European Parliament recognised the importance of Europe’s creative industries – valued at €509 billion annual GDP contribution and providing 7.5% of employment, and acted in response to creators expressing their needs clearly from direct professional and personal experience.

At this key juncture of the negotiations, the world’s music creators urge Member States and the European Commission to be faithful to this promise and duly take into account the European Parliament’s clear support of creators’ interests and livelihoods.