Film groups demand rights put at ‘heart’ of EU copyright reform

Two groups representing film directors and screen writers have called on the European Commission to introduce a provision in its Digital Single Market strategy that ensures they can fairly profit from the commercialization of films they work on.

Both the Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) and Writers & Directors Worldwide issued statements on June 3 arguing that film makers’ rights should be at the “heart” of copyright reforms.

The groups’ chief demand is that the EU adopts a similar law to the one in Chile that gives directors and screenplay writers an “unwaivable right to remuneration” when their films are commercially exploited, regardless of the platform it is distributed on.

One of its measures includes an attempt to harmonize the length of copyright protection in each member state.

In January, Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, argued that the length of copyright protection in each member state should be ‘life plus 50 years’.

In the UK, the length of protection is currently ‘life plus 70 years’.

The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee is due to vote on Reda’s proposals on June 16.