W sprawie praw autorskich – do UE
THE EUROPEAN AUTHORS’ PETITION
TO REMOVE ARTICLE 12 FROM THE DIRECTIVE
ON COPYRIGHT IN THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET
(COM/2016/0593)
Article 12 of the Digital Single Market Directive threatens the copyright,
contractual freedom and livelihood of authors:
The authors and their national organizations, the signees of this petition oppose the article 12 of the proposed DSM Copyright Directive COM/2016/0593. The article, which concerns the
publishers’ right for compensation, is against the basic principles of copyright, and threatens the contractual freedom and livelihood of authors. Instead of improving the conditions of European digital single market, the passing of the article would cause serious market disturbances in several
countries.
The article 12 should not be passed, because:
It is against the basic principles of copyright.
The basic principle of copyright is that the author of a work is always a natural person, i.e. a human being. Creating rights to publishers directly through legislation would be contrary to the basic principles of copyright – the individual author has the right to decide which rights to grant. Publishers get all the rights they need through the contracts between the author and the publisher.
It limits contractual freedom in an unprecedented way:
The weaker contractual position of authors is widely recognized and accepted. The proposed article 12 would further weaken the position of authors in relation to publishers. Limiting contractual freedom by legislative measures to the detriment of the weaker party is not acceptable. On the
contrary, the duty of the legislators is to protect the weaker party.
It would weaken the livelihood of authors:
In several countries the copyright remunerations for authors, among them the public lending remuneration, enable them to continue doing creative work. Dividing the remunerations with the publishers would seriously weaken the possibilities of authors to continue in their chosen profes-
sion. In Nordic and Baltic countries – as well as in many other European countries – the public lending remuneration has always been a compensation solely aimed for the creators of works.
It causes disturbances in the book markets and causes friction between authors and publishers:
The article is hastily drafted and its impacts on the book market and the livelihood of the authors are not sufficiently studied and assessed. Instead of improving the working of the single digital market, it would cause market disturbances and weaken the publishers’ business opportunities
as at least some authors would become self-publishers.
It is terminologically unclear and intrinsically contradictory:
If passed, the article would create a legally unclear situation. Additionally, the articles of the pro-posed directive are contradictory and their impact scattershot.
It is very difficult to implement:
The passing of the article would cause several practical problems and heavy administrative costs.
Before distributing the remunerations, each individual work would have to be checked to find out to whom the compensation should be given and how it should be divided.
It is problematic in the light of the basic principles of the European Union
Article 12 is problematic in the light of the principle of subsidiarity, and it should be taken into account that, according to the European Union treaties, the Union’s role in cultural issues is only to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the member states. The public lending remu-
nerations are an issue of cultural politics in all the countries supporting this petition.
It may have undesirable effects to the ways use of literature will be remunerated in the future:
As it is impossible to foresee the ways literature will be used in the future, the undesirable effects
of the compensation for publishers prescribed in the Article 12 have to be taken into account.
October 11, 2017
The member states of the European Union have a wide array of legislative arrangements and
principles for the copyright remunerations, which in their part enable livelihood for authors and
the development of national culture. These structures have developed to support each country’s
unique cultural field, and especially in small language areas, it would be fatal to destroy practices
that have proven to be effective.
The copyright and authors’ organizations in the signing countries appeal to the members of the
European parliament to remove article 12 from the DSM Directive. If it is not possible to move
the article from the directive, the member state discretion must be secured and the original word-
ing of the Commission must not be changed to the detriment of authors.