Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-22-Speech-3-455"
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"en.20090422.59.3-455"2
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"Mr President, I should like to welcome Commissioner McCreevy into the Chamber and to thank all colleagues who are here this evening.
In our audience tonight we have some musicians, some producers and, indeed, some interested parties. I would say to them that this is the first step that we see on the stage towards guaranteeing that artists and musicians can take more control of what their rights are. If we succeed in this first step, you can guarantee we can move on to the next steps towards Everest.
The extension of copyright and the term of protection has been a long and arduous journey for all of us, in particular because a huge amount of people are not fully aware of all the facts associated with copyright.
At the outset, let me put on the official record of the House my thanks to all of my colleagues, both those who support and those who oppose the proposal I am putting forward, for their contributions, their input and in particular for their helpful advice and guidance along the road. I should also like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Legal Affairs and in particular Giorgio, who has been a very strong advocate and adviser with regard to all these areas, and, finally, Commissioner McCreevy and all his staff. I would hate to name them individually, but the man sitting next to you has done Trojan work with regard to this report and this directive.
Many lies have been told – and I use the word ‘lies’ guardedly with regard to what we are trying to do here. This can be condensed down very simply into four very clear areas. Firstly, the extension of the term of protection from the present 50 years to a further extension of term. We are now proposing, as part of a compromise, 70 years. That proposal for compromise is founded on some of the resistance from the Council of Ministers, and it disappoints me that the Council Presidency is not represented here tonight. In fact, all during this process I feel the Council Presidency has not been too helpful in trying to bring this issue forward. At the outset of the Czech Presidency, I advised the Prime Minister, as well as the minister with responsibility and the officials from the Czech Presidency, that this could be a great success for the Presidency as well as a success for this Parliament. But other pressures came to bear upon them, and they have taken a disinterested or semi-detached attitude with regard to trying to find solutions.
As well as that, other Member States in the Council of Ministers have purposely tried to block and hinder progress in this process by putting in spurious claims and spurious amendments without actually looking at the detail or the content or even engaging properly with Parliament to see how Parliament could be flexible with regard to what needs to happen.
But the second point with regard to what this directive is doing – and possibly the most important of all – is that for the first time it recognises the contribution of session musicians by establishing a fund to allow them to ensure that they have a return and remuneration for their work – which has been exploited by people over a long period of time – for which they may only get a one-off payment if they are lucky. This will ensure that those who are near the end of their playing careers or those who may have other economic issues with regard to them can get further protection from it.
Thirdly, with regard to the whole area of balancing the rights and the powers of those who are in negotiation between the record companies and the musicians, it gives extra rights to musicians and to others to ensure this can happen.
Fourthly, and most importantly of all, by ensuring that there is clarity with regard to how the law operates within the European Union. Many of my colleagues, particularly those from Spain and other Mediterranean countries, have put forward ideas with regard to the audiovisual sector, and we have tried to accommodate them by putting into the draft report this idea of having a separate directive to deal with the audiovisual sector, because it has different issues that relate to it and requires different solutions. Likewise, as has been discovered during the course of our debates and discussions, there is a huge area with regard to the management of the collection societies and how they best represent the rights and the collection management of the monies that are due to artists to ensure that they can come towards them.
Finally, let me just say that people should realise that this is a creative right; this is something that an individual has created and has given to us; it is something that we should pay for – not an exorbitant amount, but a small amount. The idea of copyright today is seen to be thrown away at the wind – everybody can get everything for free. If we go down that road, in the short term it may be all great for us, but in the long term it will kill creativity, it will kill the opportunity for new musicians, new bands and new experiences to come before us all."@en1
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