[Focus] Film makers write to Brussels over digital rights reform
HELENA SPONGENBERG
08.11.2006 @ 09:19 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Some of Europe's most acclaimed film directors have come together to warn the European Commission against ending private copy levies - a system that impose a charge on all sales of computers or other equipment that can be used to make unlicensed private copies of their work.
The letter was signed by the cream of European film making talent (Photo: Notat)
Pedro Almodovar, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Costa Gavras, Nanni Moretti, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Lars von Trier on Tuesday (6 November) sent a joint open letter to the commission expressing their "wholehearted support to the principle of compensation for the private copying of audio and audiovisual works."
"Creators should have the right to be fairly compensated for their work when the latter is being reproduced. While consumers have the ability to copy films, film directors should be able to exercise their right to perceive a compensation for such usage," the letter said.
The compensation scheme is in use in 20 of the EU's 25 member states but the EU executive is preparing a fresh recommendation - due in November - on whether to reform a 2001 copyright directive, with early drafts of the recommendation hostile to the levy system.
"Our only assets as creators are the rights granted to us as authors of intellectual property works. Therefore questioning this right to compensation for private reproduction is a frontal attack on our 'droit d'auteur' or copyright," the film makers said.
The information and communication technology (ICT) industry, which produces the wide-ranging products that manages artists' creative works - such as DVD recorders and MP3 players, argues that advances in digital rights management (DRM) technology have made levies obsolete.
DRM systems encrypt digital products so that they can only be copied a limited number of times for private use limiting the scope for piracy and widespread file sharing among consumers, with the levies taking a €1.6 billion a year bite out of the industry according to software lobby BSA.
But the film directors argue they "fail to see how DRM will be a substitute to this right, whose implementation is worth €560 million a year to the creative industries in Europe" and added that the numbers put forward by the ICT industry are "inaccurate."
"Our craft is to write and direct movies [but] it is becoming harder to finance European stories," the letter stated, with all of the signatories having won prestigious international film prizes such as the Cannes Palme d'Or price or the Oscar or both for their work.
"Creators provide most of the material which consumers want to copy. Without this content, consumers would only be able to make copies of their own work. As a result, the attraction of consumer electronics to store or copy would be much weaker. We believe, therefore, that it is fair that content creators receive compensation for private copying," they say.
The film directors also called on the market-driven Barroso commission to "take culture and creativity into account when developing policies" with some 10 percent of the levy income channelled to cultural diversity projects around the EU.
Speaking on broad trends in the digital market place in October, single market commissioner Charlie McCreevy said "some people have looked at what we are doing with suspicion. They fear that change will lead to the devaluing of creative work and that it will undermine Europe's cultural diversity."
But the commissioner - whose department is responsible for the levy reform - added that "Technology is changing every aspect of our world, including how music is created and circulated. It is happening, whether we like it or not. The choice was never about standing still. It was about keeping up or falling behind."
