News

On today’s World Intellectual Property Day 2018, UNI MEI Global Union and its 140 affiliated unions and guilds and representing over 400 000 creators, technicians and other workers in the media, entertainment & arts worldwide call on governments and employers to work together for an equal, diverse, inclusive and sustainable global entertainment industry.

Policy choices at the national and international level should be made with the intent of supporting the industries, talent and workers that are essential to the creation of a thriving market for professional digital content. All creative works take years to create to come to fruition. These works are what makes the creative industries so valuable both culturally and economically.  The protection and strengthening of intellectual property rights attached to these works is the cornerstone of any effort to insure the production of creative content and remuneration of creators and all those working in the industry.

We call on governments, regional and global intergovernmental organisations to nourish a culture of strong intellectual property rights, which provide for legal frameworks that ensure fair contracts and fair remuneration for creators. Legislation, industrial policy and education need to emphasise the important role of intellectual property as a driver for creativity, artistic and creative freedom.

Authors, co-authors, other individual rights holders and workers receive appropriate levels of remuneration where meaningful collective agreements are concluded between employers and trade unions and guilds. At the same time, the “complex” mix of creative contributions that are rewarded do not hamper licensing agreements, development of new services or stifle innovation. We call on companies and their regional and global associations to engage with trade unions and guilds in a dialogue over making creation of works a fairer, a more equal, inclusive and sustainable process for all creators. We urge all stakeholders to come together in order to ban unfair contractual arrangements, unequal pay between and to close the gender pay gap.   

Making a film or any other audiovisual work is a collaborative art and work process. Each work and its creation are unique and different creators and creative workers contribute each in their own way to the realisation of these works. Employers take considerable investment risks before the first day of production. So do creators that develop and create creative works. It takes very often years for their creative and economic investment to translate into a financed project that reaches the production stage and a remunerated contract.  

Authors, co-authors, other individual rights holders and creative workers that are represented by our affiliates should be remunerated for and per each use of an audiovisual work whatever the mode of distribution. Their moral and creative rights need to be protected. Regulation, collective agreements, individual contracts and provisions regulating collective rights management systems and organisations need to provide for the implementation of these rights. These principles are the basis for any process that aims at modernising or adapting intellectual property rights and their application in practice. When modernising copyright regimes regulators need to ensure that transparency of exploitation of works is comprehensive and inclusive and that unions can represent their members in negotiations and re-negotiations of contracts as well as during any arbitration or dispute settlement procedures.