Friday

29th Mar 2024

Creators want a chance of Stayin' Alive

I am not here today as one of the creative voices behind the Bee Gees, but as the President of CISAC, speaking on behalf of the 2.5 million authors and composers that it represents.

I would like to share a few things that I have learnt over the course of my career. Values that seem essential to defend in Europe. Values that will not only fuel creativity, but that will contribute to a Europe that is healthy both culturally and economically.

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As someone who can call Europe home but who also grew up outside of Europe, I can attest to the fact that Europe continues to seduce its citizens and visitors with its incredible richness of languages, cultures and creativity.

This richness is sustained by hundreds of thousands of composers, authors, writers,

filmmakers and visual artists, who are the lifeblood of European culture.

Keeping Europe's cultural diversity alive and kicking translates directly into ensuring that this vital community of creators is healthy.

In turn, we creators need our authors' societies to survive. Societies are dedicated to ensuring that all of Europe's creators can make a living from their works, whether we are talking about mainstream popular music or specialised genres like contemporary classical music, folk music or jazz. After all, it is these niches that put the diversity in cultural diversity!

Key to encouraging this cultural diversity is a network of national societies linked together by reciprocal agreements: this allows societies to work in their countries to cultivate local talent and serve local users and audiences while facilitating cultural exchange throughout the EU.

While I am fortunate to have a successful career, the vast majority of creators are unknown and have difficulty making ends meet. Isolated, they are vulnerable and likely to perish while navigating the dangerous waters of multinational corporations and licensing contracts.

By representing all of us, authors' societies provide a more level playing field for negotiating fair rates with powerful users.

In addition, as we enter uncharted waters at breakneck speed, societies are even more

valuable to us.

Times are changing

We know that times are changing and as creators we are excited about the new possibilities that are out there for us.

Societies will in many ways act as our digital agents, making sure that our works are made available on new platforms and making sure that we receive remuneration for this use.

Societies have always met change head on. They have always remained stable enough to effectively defend the rights of creators and adaptable enough to adjust to the changing demands brought upon by recorded music, radio, television, and now, the Internet.

Societies know that adaptation is a continuous process.

Healthy, productive creators will ultimately drive economic growth in Europe. To give you an idea of the economic weight of creators, the creative industries (which are built on our works) represent 2.6% of the EU's gross domestic product.

This translates to profits of 654 billion Euros, not to mention the increased employment opportunities for Europeans and the spillover effects that this growth has had on the technology industries.

So we must be very wary of the short-sighted vision of multinational content users who only see authors' rights as another cost line in their budgets. This vision, which may result in a few more cents for the companies' shareholders in the short run, fails to take into account the fact that these companies' entire business models rely on creative content.

These companies may argue that creators are being greedy, citing the few superstars. If they're so attached to the romantic notion of the starving artist, they needn't worry.

There will still be plenty of those!

But if the artists do actually starve, the entire economy will feel the effects. Societies, creators and content users have a symbiotic relationship with one another. The success of one is the success of the other. Likewise the downfall of one is the downfall of the other.

Statement of objections

For this reason, speaking for the millions of creators that CISAC represents, I must take this opportunity to express our opinion on the pending outcome of the Statement of Objections that was brought against CISAC and could incur fines.

Every Euro taken from an authors' society to pay these fines will be one Euro taken from an individual creator. Fines would contradict any pledges of "support" to the creative community that have been made by EU representatives in the past. It will cure nothing, and the side effects may be even more harmful.

What are needed at this time are concrete solutions.

Concrete solutions that can only be achieved through a constructive, collective approach that brings together the European Institutions, authors' societies and, of course, the creators.

As I have explained here today, creators have valuable contributions to make to a healthy Europe.

We must keep the lines of communication open if they and their families are to have half a chance of Stayin' Alive."

Speech prepared by CISAC president Robing Gibb, for the EUobserver's conference on Creative Rights and Cultural Diversity, 6 December, 2007

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