The Finnish government’s decision to halve state-funded compensation for private copying from €11 million to €5.5 million has drawn sharp criticism from organisations representing creator collecting societies. CISAC and GESAC, which both represent songwriter societies, are among those condemning the move.
Compensation for private copying is intended to reimburse creators and copyright owners when individuals make private copies of their works, and is distributed to rightsholders and funding schemes through the collective licensing system.
The significant reduction in revenue will, say the creator organisations, have “harmful and destructive consequences for authors and the whole creative ecosystem in Finland”. They go on to add that the Finnish government is failing to meet its obligations under European law to “organise and secure fair compensation” for creators.
Copyright law in most countries provides a private copy exception, allowing people to legally make private copies of copyright protected works without getting permission from copyright owners. This exception is commonly accompanied by a system for compensating creators and rightsholders, often involving a levy on media or devices that are frequently used for making private copies.
In the pre-digital era, that levy was often applied to things like blank cassette tapes but, with the shift to digital, an alternative approach was needed. The levy is now often applied to smartphones and tablets, despite the protestations of technology companies. However, as that shift was occurring, some countries experimented with the idea of simply having a state-funded compensation programme, with the government committing a set amount of money each year.
As it currently stands, Finland is the only country in the EU still running a state-funded compensation programme. Rightsholders have long expressed concerns that state-funded programmes, where the level of funding is not linked to the sale of media and devices used for private copying, are vulnerable to sudden changes in the total amount of funding driven by shifts in government policy rather than any change in private copying practices.
“A yearly amount of €5.5 million euros to be split between authors, performers, producers and publishers in the audiovisual, music, text and visual arts sectors cannot be considered in any way as an adequate, sufficient or fair compensation for private copying”, the creator organisations say.
They warn that the cutback will not only directly hit the private copy royalties received by individual creators and rightsholders, but will also have a negative impact on crucial funding organisations that get a share of the private copy income. That includes MES which supports music, AVEK which supports audio-visual projects and The VISEK Centre which supports visual art.
“Today, about 140 films and works of media art are financed annually with AVEK’s support and 200 municipalities events are financed with grants from MES”, the creator organisations note. “We, therefore, find it disconcerting that the Finnish government would want to make it even more difficult to create new works and generate growth in the creative industries”.
The organisations are now calling on the Finnish government to maintain the compensation level from private copying at a minimum of €11 million “in order to safeguard the ability of authors to earn a living from their art” and “to ensure Finland’s legal responsibility to achieve a fair compensation scheme” as required by European law.
They also highlight that an EU court previously ruled that state-funded private copy compensation schemes aren't even compliant with European law.
Consequently, they urge Finland to “update the private copying system to accurately reflect the actual number of copies being made and their extensive use, particularly in the digital environment, to ensure a sustainable and fair level of compensation”.
CISAC is the global organisation representing songwriter collecting societies, while GESAC performs the same role on a pan-European basis. Other organisations criticising the changes to Finland’s private copy compensation system include EVA representing visual art societies, SAA in the audio-visual sector, and IFRRO working for societies representing text and image-based works.