From Paolo Conte to Ennio Morricone, from Nicola Piovani to Mogol, there are many Italian artists who have signed the SIAE appeal for the approval of the new EU copyright directive, to vote on March 26 at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The objective of the provision is "to ensure a fair compensation for copyright in the digital world - writes the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers - The web giants today represent the main points of access to the works of creators, generating enormous profits for them but offering an almost non-existent return to the authors”.
The new rules require the giants of the network how Google, Facebook or YouTube to conclude agreements with copyright holders and to pay for material that is used on the internet.
Article 13 of the directive – the most contested – obliges online platforms to automatically filter the material uploaded by users, removing the one covered by copyright. The compromise reached provides for the exclusion of startups with less than 5 million unique visitors per month from some obligations of the directive.
The directive does not impose any costs on usersdoes not limit its activity in any way e it does not hinder the development of web 2.0 sites such as Wikipedia. It is important to underline this, given that the companies damaged by the reform have spread a series of fake news to get public opinion on their side: for example the imaginative "link tax" charged to users, which in reality does not exist.
The EU states will have two years to transpose the directive into their legal systems.
La Yes, which has ninety thousand members, believes it is "dutiful for a civilized country to protect the right of authors to have the ownership of their production recognized. It is a principle of equity that cannot be underestimated: culture is an intangible asset but its creation is and remains a value. This principle also applies to platforms that profit from cultural production without wanting to assume any responsibility for violations of authors' rights. They are actors who have enormous power to influence public opinion and who have not hesitated to do so”.
According to the Oscar winner Ennio Morricone, "this directive serves to re-establish that creative work must be remunerated, as the history of our Founding Fathers taught us".
Along the same lines Nicola Piovani: "This provision does not benefit the few wealthy authors, but it does benefit the many, many authors who aren't rich, and the many young authors who have the right to have their works of genius recognized, however small they may be, because this is a premise for the freedom of the authors, the richness and diversity of the contents to exist".
Paolo Conte Instead, he stresses that "platforms oppose their lobbies with all their strength, defending tooth and nail the rules that privilege them, written in 2000, when the Internet was completely different".
Finally, Mogol, who is also president of SIAE, addresses the MEPs directly: "I tell you that it is not a matter of opinion but of conscience and I also tell you that we have faith in you".
Also the Italian federation of newspaper publishers (Fieg), with a full-page appeal published in various newspapers, asked the Italian MEPs to vote yes to the directive. A yes which, writes the federation, will go to "defense democracy and the right of 150 million European readers to a free press", without having repercussions on the use of the Net, which "will remain free, without any limitation of individual freedoms ”, with the possibility for users to “freely access online news, use social networks, produce blogs, share opinions, photos and links”.
