Blog
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Culture, the big loser of the next European Commission
Culture portfolio is losing departments as well as prestige and importance.
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Baking cakes and making films
Think of Europe as a patchwork quilt. One, single quilt made of patches of different shapes and sizes.
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The Lives of Others
The popular winner in the press after the European Parliament elections is ‘others’, a mix of national eurosceptic, extreme right and anti-establishment parties that together represent the 3rd highest grouping (estimates put EPP at 213 seats, S&D at 189 seats and other at 105 seats).
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Cinéma européen, le yéti de Bruxelles
A Bruxelles, dans les instances européennes, nous discutons beaucoup de cinéma européen : cette créature dont tout le monde parle mais que personne n’a rencontrée et qui fait l’objet de nombreux débats économiques ou juridiques qui laissent finalement peu de place à l’expression du talent de nos auteurs, à leurs idées, à leur vision.
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11,117 contributions! Democracy in action?
The clock strikes 12.
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Le citoyen européen et le droit d’auteur
Je ne fais pas mienne la citation de Winston Churchill : « The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter » (Le meilleur argument contre la démocratie est un entretien de cinq minutes avec un électeur moyen).
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Creators' Contracts – unfair?
“The existing contractual protection of authors, as included in copyright law and, indirectly, in general contract law, appears not to be sufficient or effective to secure a fair remuneration to authors or address some unfair contractual provisions.
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What about multi-territory taxation?
A recent article in El Pais (in English here) was titled « 7 internet giants only pay Spain 1 million in taxes ».
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Spotify publishes royalty per click rate. And VOD platforms?
You may have followed the recent debate about Spotify payout rates (if not see here, here and here) following Thom Yorke’s initial criticism of the rates. After weeks of defending themselves and underlining how much it has paid out to rightholders, at the beginning of December Spotify updated their service and opened themselves up to some transparency (see articles here and here) on both statistics and royalties. This notably included putting an approximate value on the per stream royalty rate – somewhere between 0.006$ and 0.0084$.
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Licences for Europe: Backstage
Now that the dust has settled from last week’s Licences for Europe plenary, I thought I would share some thoughts about the process and outcomes here.
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Phasing out copying?
The legal affairs committee exchanged views on the draft report by Mrs Castex MEP on the issue of private copying levies on 14 October 2013.
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Making Private Copying Work for a Digital Europe
On 18th September 2013 the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee held a hearing on private copying levies. The hearing saw authors, performers, film producers, consumers and manufacturers present their visions of the system for MEPs to take into account as they prepare a report on the issue.
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