Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-15-Speech-4-100"
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"Mr President, I too would like to begin by paying tribute to Mrs Echerer – and I do not need to insist on this, since many Members have done the same – but I would also like to welcome the statements by Commissioner Bolkestein, who acknowledges the importance of collecting societies at the present time.
Intellectual property has developed as a result of technological advances. Until printing there was no real intellectual property. We now have a second technological revolution, the ‘Marconi Galaxy’, with all the new information technologies.
As technology advances, the creator moves further and further away from the consumer. Specifically, my colleague, Mr Harbour, talks of the customer, but I prefer to use the word consumer, differentiating between the two classes of client: the final consumer, that is, the long-suffering citizen who has to watch television and radio programmes, and the intermediary, who buys the intellectual property rights, uses them and exploits them.
This brings us to the situation we are faced with, with a multiplication of forms of media, but which are increasingly lacking in content. In other words, we have more and more hours of television, more and more electronic hours, more magazines, more books and more means of production, but they are practically devoid of content. And this is the result of a lack of support for the creator.
In the current information society, creators are not being protected. We are creating rubbish-media, which use intellectual property in an entirely thoughtless way, with no sense of responsibility whatsoever and, in view of this, creators need to be protected.
That is the role of the collecting societies, which are not monopolies, but instruments available to creators so that they can defend themselves in the face of the control of the media by a few media groups, supported by huge economic power and at the service of political or economic interests. Therefore, the only instrument these creators have today are these collecting societies, which constitute employees’ unions, in order to confront the employers’ organisations, which have enormous strength.
I agree that collecting societies must adapt to the new situation, because they have arisen at national level and we are about to move on to a transnational, and even world, level. But at least, at European Union level, we should reinforce the action of these collecting societies, so that, at this level, we can have that protection.
I would like finally to refer to enlargement. The European Union is going to be enriched with ten new countries which have a great cultural tradition, but in which – as a result of their recent political past – intellectual property has not been sufficiently protected until very recently.
I believe it is very important that, in the final enlargement process, we make these countries aware of the need to adapt themselves to the Community acquis, including, amongst other things, collective management, in the face of this danger of monopoly on the part of the large groups controlling the media."@en1
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