
FERA joins South Eastern Europe and international organisations gathering to discuss audiovisual authors’ rights protection

On September 6, FERA joined representatives of regional and international organisations from the audiovisual creative community gathered in Ljubljana, Slovenia to discuss the protection of authors’ rights in the digital age.
The meeting, organised by FERA members Directors Guild of Slovenia (DSR) and Collecting Society of Authors, Performers and Film Producers of Audiovisual works of Slovenia (AIPA, k. o.), comes at a time where EU countries are still in the process of implementing EU directive 2019/790 on copyright on the single digital market, while only 16 Member States have transposed it in their national legislation. Delays in the process have been quite significant since the Directive’s transposition June 2021 deadline is now long passed.
As described in the STA news report, “Slovenia is in the process of changing its legislation in this field. The government recently endorsed two bills expanding these rights, which are to be fast-tracked through parliament. This comes after the country received two reprimands from Brussels because of the delay in transposing the directive. Based on its reply to the second warning, the European Commission extended the deadline for transposing the directive [in Slovenian legislation] to 19 October 2022.”
FERA Chair Bill Anderson and CEO Pauline Durand-Vialle contributed to the exchange by underlining the importance of solidarity and exchange between representatives of authors across the continent and internationally, and by sharing a snapshot of the Directive’s provisions on fair remuneration in exploitation contracts provisions of authors and performers.
FERA remains committed to set high standards for European filmmakers’ authors’ rights at a time of sea-changes for the production and distribution markets of audiovisual works, as well as new relationships with local and international audiences.