Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-15-Speech-4-102"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20040115.4.4-102"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, it is customary for a speaker in my role to assure rapporteurs that we are right behind them, but in this case that would not quite be appropriate. In this case, the cart is firmly behind the horse, and she is leading us – as well as all the Members of the Committee and Parliament – in the charge. We are very grateful to Mrs Echerer for having given us that lead.
As was said in the debate, there is a kind of tripod involved in relation to copyright and related rights. One leg of the tripod is the copyright legislation that has already been adopted by Parliament. The second leg is the enforcement provisions that we are currently debating, and the third leg is the issue of collecting societies and the administration of copyright in the interests of rights holders.
As Commissioner Bolkestein said, these are monopolies, but they are in principle benign monopolies because of the territoriality of copyright. It may be – and perhaps Mr Harbour and Mr Karas will explain this to me one day – that collecting societies can operate in competition with each other within a given domain or within a given country, but I find it difficult to see how that would work. If I am right, the point made by the Commissioner earlier assumes tremendous importance, namely that we need to look closely and critically at the governance of these societies, which are in a position to 'rip people off' by charging unduly high fees for providing services to artists, authors and others.
I am delighted to hear that the Commission is to follow up the Committee's initiative by bringing forward a proposal for a legislative instrument concerning the good governance of collecting societies. It is a proposal I await eagerly.
I would like to make a point in response to what Mr Harbour said that also provides me with an opportunity to declare a minor interest. I am an academic author and a very modest part of my annual income, as anybody who reads the Declaration of Members' Interests will know, comes from rights management on behalf of myself as an academic author. Looking at it from the point of view of an author of that kind, the notion of the reader as customer is not as significant as Mr Harbour said. The critical notion – and this also applies to the arts – is surely the reader or consumer as audience. One is concerned about getting ideas across to people and getting them engaged in debate about ideas.
From that point of view, it is a matter of total indifference to an author what or how much they get paid. Quite the reverse. I and authors like myself have no chance of getting ideas to a wide public unless there are effective publishing systems – that is to say publishers who get paid for their activities. In that sense, this whole business of collective rights is for us more a means to an end than an end in itself. We should not think of it simply in terms of customers, but as an essential feature of the single market. We are delighted with the Commission's proposal and, like everybody else, I am so pleased to have worked with Mrs Echerer on this."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples