Authors are making their voices heard in European policy discussions. The SoA is working with partners to raise key issues including fair contracts.

At the 2016 Creators Conference, which brought together over 200 creators, consumers and EU policy makers, the message was clear; authors are essential and their interests must be at the heart of policy decisions.

The Authors' Group – of which the SoA is member through the European Writers’ Council – took the opportunity to present a declaration ‘Towards a modern, more European copyright framework and the necessity of fair contracts for creators’.

The declaration aligns with our own C.R.E.A.T.O.R. Campaign for Fair Contracts and calls for the European Commission to take action for fair remuneration, fair contracts and transparency in its upcoming copyright legislative proposal.

The Authors’ Group, which includes writers, literary translators, composers, songwriters, journalists, screenwriters, film and TV directors, reaffirmed that copyright is the ‘main pillar and prime justification for authors’ rights and copyright as a legal regime’ and underlined the problem of unfair contracts and the need for transparent accounting. The declaration calls for

… a stable and fair European copyright framework for the benefit of authors, a framework that diminishes the value gaps between authors and publishers, producers and broadcasters, a framework which stimulates the creative process and brings transparency in authors’ remuneration schemes.

The European copyright framework must assert the role of authors as the source of the creative industries, which provide 7 million jobs in the EU, by strengthening the bargaining position of authors when dealing with the first intermediaries of the value chain.

The conference provided positive dialogue and showed that policy makers are recognising the need to prioritise authors’ rights and remuneration. In a keynote speech, Andrus Ansip, Vice President of the European Commission and leader of the Digital Single Market project, underlined the ‘need to look closer at the conditions for remunerating creators and getting a fair share of the value generated’.

Read the full Authors’ Group Declaration