April 2007
ECA INTERVENTION ON LÉVAI REPORT IN THE EP REVEALS DUBIOUS PETITION LIST BY PUBLISHERS’ LOBBYISTS – REPORT FAVOURED BY EP, RESISTED BY COMMISSIONER MCCREEVY
A CASE STUDY
When ECA General Secretary Pia Raug was confronted with rumours that a dubious ICMP/CIEM petition with hundreds of artists’ signatures circulated among MEPs shortly before the decisive vote on the Lévai Report, the ECA office immediately started to research and sent out a warning to the ECA members not to sign this petition that was accompanied by the following letter:
Dear Member of the European Parliament,
A prominent group of writers and composers from all over Europe (Belgium, Denmark, the Check Republic, Hungary, Italy, Holland, Poland, the UK among others) agreed to and signed the attached petition to voice their dismay at the Levai report which attempts to take away freedom and choice for rightholders as promoted by the Commission Recommendation on music licensing. Only freedom and choice in licensing will guarantee keeping the value of cultural expression and its wide dissemination to the benefit of cultural diversity in our Continent. We would respectfully urge you to vote against this report today and call for a renewed and fuller debate on this important issue.
Sincerely Yours,
Alessandra Silvestro
Avvocato
Silvestro sprl
Intellectual Property & Media Law
Rue Ducale, 83
1000 Bruxelles
Only hours later ECA-President Ludwig Laher wrote an email letter to the MEPs and all relevant organisations:
The European Council of Artists representing professional artists associations in 25 European countries strongly supports the Lévai Report adopted by the EP Legal Affairs Committee on 20 February 2007 by an overwhelming majority.
In the light of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which will come into force on 18 March 2007, the ECA urges all MEPs to take into account that the Commission recommendation on cross-border management of online music would cause severe damage to cultural diversity, as expressed in the Lévai Report: “A ‘big-bang’ style introduction of competition in the field of collective management of authors’ rights should not be pursued because of the risk of irreversible damage to cultural diversity in Europe.”
If the market for collective rights management were opened without any kind of control, the market power would be concentrated in the hands of a few major rights holders, the reciprocal network of collecting societies which has been serving all rights holders equally for more than 100 years would cease to exist. The European Union is a signatory party to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The ECA expects all MEPs to decide according to its provisions as well as to the underlying concept of the dual character of cultural activities, goods and services having “both an economic and a cultural nature, because they convey identities, values and meanings, and must therefore not be treated as solely having commercial value” (Convention preamble).
The ECA is well aware that there is an ICMP/CIEM petition “Witers and composers for choice” circulating with a number of artists mentioned, some of whom have assured us that they had never been asked to sign in. While ECA together with the other artists associations concerned will take the necessary steps to clear this matter up, we reject the misleading and at times ridiculous contents of this petition claiming rightly that there “will be pressure to vary the Recommendation from those who do not share our desire to encourage and support our culture”. Whoever speaks of our culture, has not even understood that culture, like snow, does not go together with possessive pronouns. There might be his new book, her painting and their expression of indigenous culture, it is reasonable to speak of our cultural identity, but there is no such thing as my culture, your culture and so forth.
The ECA underlines that this petition aimed at destroying the existing diversified system of collecting societies does not express the opinions of any of the legitimate artists associations working on European and global levels.
The CRM societies and the European composers reacted immediately. So did a number of MEPs, among them Vasco Graça Moura from Portugal, who summed up the developments and urged his colleagues to vote in favour of the Lévai Report:
This morning we received a mail about the so-called "Artists petition against Levai report on Music Licensing".
As far as I am told by the Portuguese SPA (Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores, the CRM society in my country), the ECA (European Council of Arts) was sending yesterday some documentation on this issue to the national CRM societies, where it can be read (I underline the most important information):
For more than a year representatives of the authors of music within the Authors Rights Societies have been discussing, informing and lobbying against the Recommendation and have taking active part in the process leading to the final Lévai Report.
The alert networks of European Composers quickly found out that more of the named artists on the list had not been asked and had not given their consent. Others had signed not knowing what they were signing – but trusting their advisers, producers, publishers or record companies.
The ECA underlines that this petition aimed at destroying the existing diversified system of collecting societies does not express the opinions of any of the legitimate artists associations working on European and global levels.
...not all artists on the list have agreed to signing and that others have felt themselves mislead and therefore the list is not to be taken as a trustworthy document of the artists’ standpoint.
So, please pay attention to this kind of unacceptable and tricky lobbying and do not hesitate in votating for the Levai report!
Austrian MEP Eva Lichtenberger phoned ECA president Ludwig Laher shortly before her speech in the EP debate, and he was able to confirm that, among others, Dominique Pankratoff, the French composer and president of the French Union of Authors and Composers, had sent a message to Pia Raug in which he expressed his indignation at being misused by the publishers. MEP Lichtenberger made use of this information in the debate which resulted in an overwhelming majority vote for the Lévai Report. Subsequently, she received the following message:
Dear Mrs. Lichtenberger, Although the translation was difficult to follow today at the plenary, you seemed to refer to a letter signed by writers, this is strange and compels us to write to you and advise you that the very few parties who may have received a draft by accident were advised that this was a mistake due to a wrong emailing instruction and that they should delete it from their computers, destroy it, not forward it and advise any forwarded party to do the same. This request applies to all who may have received this information inaccurately since it should not normally not have reached them and it is to be deleted without any further forwarding. We hope that the point is clarified. Regards.
A characteristic detail: Even artists who are already dead are claimed as signatories of the “draft” petition.....
The example clearly shows, how important it is that the European Council of Artists is a reliable lobbyist for the artists in Europe. It also shows that effective lobbying depends on professional networking within the artists’ community, but also needs the recognition, trust and cooperation of the decision-makers in the political process. Moreover, the whole discussion on the Commission recommendation on the management of online rights in musical works is an excellent example that demonstrates the lack of democracy in the EU. Although the European Parliament backed the Lévai Report despite the scandalous intervention of the publishers, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy does not seem to give a damn:
20.03.2007
EUOBSERVER / FOCUS – EU internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy wants to give his online music recommendation more time before following a European Parliament call for binding rules to regulate the EU's online music market, disappointing MEPs. Speaking before MEPs in the parliament's legal affairs committee on Tuesday (20 March), Mr McCreevy said the effects of the 2005 commission recommendation on "collective cross-border management of copyright and related rights for legitimate online music services" still had to be seen before a new decision could be made.
In reaction ECA General Secretary and CIAM President Pia Raug said: The fight must go on.
MALTA, IRELAND, LUXEMBOURG, ROMANIA
- During the recent EC meeting in Malta, ECA Vice President Narcy Calamatta and ECA Malta organized events with composers and writers in Valetta. Attending the latter Malta’s Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech gave a speech on the occasion of the UNESCO convention’s coming into effect on 18 March 2007. In his thank-you letter for the minister’s contribution ECA President Ludwig Laher also addressed the deplorable state of authors’ rights in the country:
Let me express my hope that, although Malta is a small country, the standard of authors’ rights, especially in the audiovisual media, will improve in due time. We have advised our colleagues to take Iceland as a model, which has only half the population of Malta, but a very advanced level of artists’ rights and representation in all relevant discourses.
- On 12 April 2007 a meeting of representatives of Irish Artists’ Organisations will take place in Dublin to discuss the establishment of a national umbrella for creative artists associations. This is an initiative of Visual Artists Ireland. ECA president Ludwig Laher will attend the meeting.
- The ECA office prepares an initiative to address the artists associations in Luxembourg. The Executive Committee will urge them to found an umbrella organisation and join the ECA membership.
- At the beginning of June, the Executive Committee will meet in Bucharest to prepare the ECA 2007 Annual Conference and Congress in Sibiu in association with our Romanian member ANUC.
EU XXL RESOLUTION ADOPTED
The EU XXL film, forum and festival in Krems, Austria adopted a very elaborate resolution that pays specific attention to the Television Without Frontiers and Licensing Without Frontiers issues. The ECA was represented by Pia Raug and Ludwig Laher, who both gave speeches.
(www.eu-xxl.at/jart/prj3/euxxl/main.jart?rel=de&content-id=1173087029444&reserve-mode=active)
“WRITERS IN EXILE” PROJECT IN DANGER AGAIN -
ECA HELP NEEDED IN AUSTRIA
Last year the ECA successfully supported Austrian artists’ associations in their struggle to keep the international “Writers in Exile” project running in the country (cf. ECA NEWSLETTER 3/2006). Poets Aftab Husain from Pakistan and Sarita Jenamani from India, a married couple with a small child, were invited by the International P.E.N. under the “Writers in Exile”-programme to come to Europe, as Mr Husain, who was also editor of a literary journal and a professor of literature, had published a poem by India’s Prime Minister on the subject of peace in Pakistan, which resulted in his office being destroyed, while he himself became subject to unequivocal threats against his person.
Next year the couple would be entitled to stay and work in Austria, if the government joined the City of Vienna and continued to partly finance in 2007, which it has refused. ECA President Ludwig Laher joined representatives of the International Writers in Exile Committee, the Austrian Writers Association and the Austrian Translators Association in their negotiations with officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture with an aim to secure the state’s participation in the programme not only in 2007, but also for the future. As a result, the resistance of the ministerial bureaucracy was overcome, and a positive decision of the Minister can be expected within a couple of weeks.
CIVIL SOCIETY PLATFORM FOR INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE – ECA PARTICIPATED IN RECENT BRUSSELS MEETING
Elisabet Diedrichs took part in the second meeting of the Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue in Brussels, 5 March. This is an EFAH and European Cultural Foundation (ECF) initiative ”to fight the growing apartheid in our societies”, said ECF director Gottfried Wagner in his opening speech. The platform focuses on "diversity in proximity - diversity due to old and now migratory flows in urban situations".
There was a session on the European Year for Intercultural Dialogue 2008, one on concrete experiences of community activities, and a number of workshops. Policy developing and an exchange of best practices in the field of intercultural dialogue were proposed for the continued platform cooperation. It was underlined that the Intercultural Dialogue topic should also be related to the national implementation process of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
The platform gathers many committed persons and NGOs and is open for new participants. For further information please contact Elisabet Diedrichs, ECA office.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONVENTION UNDER WAY: ECA URGES MEMBERS TO TAKE PART IN THE PROCESS
Immediately after coming into force, the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is already reflected in the draft wording of the chapter ”Cultural Cooperation and Partnership” for future EU trade treaties with third parties. In some member countries the artists’ associations were invited to comment on the draft. These comments will be taken into consideration for the national position papers.
It is obvious that now is the time for ECA member organisations all over Europe to establish good working relations with their governments in all relevant UNESCO convention discourses.
BERLIN CONFERENCE REPORT AVAILABLE
The ECA conference report 2006 “Rights and Wrongs? The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions - one year after” has been published and can be ordered from the ECA Office for 12 Euro each including postal charges.
ECA APPEALS FOR DONATIONS
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Please help ECA overcome the financial dire straits
in which it has found itself due to no faults on its part
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The ECA Executive Committee
Ludwig Laher, writer, Austria, President
Narcy Calamatta, actor, Malta, Vice-President
Simon Pellar, translator, Czech Republic, Vice-President
Michael Burke, visual artist, Ireland
Renate Christin, visual artist, Germany
Torben Heron, visual artist, Denmark
Tomo Vran, visual artist, Slovenia
European Council of Artists, Borgergade 111, DK-1300 Copenhagen K, Denmark
phone: +45-35384401, fax: +45-35384417, email: eca@eca.dk, web: www.eca.dk