The European Audiovisual Observatory publishes a new in-depth analysis of the national definitions of independent production in Europe and the frameworks governing copyright retention by independent producers. The study has been co-financed by the European Commission under Creative Europe.
The data used in the report was provided by a pan-European team of national experts and has been cross-checked with the national regulatory authority in each respective territory covered.
The Latvian submission was provided by Ieva Andersone, partner and head of the competition and regulatory team and Lūcija Strauta, assistant lawyer at Sorainen.
National approaches to defining independent producers
What are the national approaches to defining independent producers and production and what are the national rules governing the retention of copyright to their work?
There is currently no unified legal definition of independent production or independent producers in Europe. So how does one define them and what are the rules governing the retention of copyright to their work?
This new report – Independent production and retention of intellectual property rights – by the European Audiovisual Observatory examines the definition of independent producers in Europe and looks at the rules concerning the retention of their rights to the films, series and programmes they produce when licensing such works to broadcasters and on-demand audiovisual services.
Following the executive summary and methodology note, chapter three provides a comparative analysis of the different definitions of independent production and independent producer in Europe. Since there is no detailed definition for such concepts in European Union legislation, it’s up to the national law in each country to define them. The authors found that 24 out of the 28 countries studied do have a definition of either an independent producer or independent production in their national legislation. While the criteria differ from country to country, the report outlines in detail the possible conditions and how they are applied in each country.
The first criterion relates to the financial independence of the producer in relation to the audiovisual media service (AVMS) provider, in terms of the capital participation or shares held by such a provider in the production company, or its financial contribution to the co-financing of the audiovisual work and lastly its financial control over the production company. In short, the producers’ control over their company and the work being produced are key factors.
Operational criteria of independence
The report then focuses on the “operational” criteria of independence, which refers to the ownership and business independence of the production company in relation to the AVMS provider. Finally, the ownership of “secondary rights” is referred to as a criterion for the independence of the producer with regards to the AVMS provider under EU law. The report looks how this criterion of the retention of intellectual property rights is used in national laws. In practice, only a third of the countries studied include in their national legislation a reference to the ownership of “secondary rights” or intellectual property rights as a criterion for defining the independence of a producer in relation to an AVMS provider.
This chapter rounds off with a look at how the rules on the retention of intellectual property rights apply when public service media providers commission the content. In this case, the rules governing the retention of secondary rights by the producer are expressly referred to and their prerequisites are clearly determined.
Chapter four delivers detailed country summaries for the 27 EU member states plus the United Kingdom. For each country the authors provide the national definition for independent producers or production. They also detail the national rules for the assignment and retention of intellectual property rights in each country.
A must -read round-up of the national approaches to defining independent producers and production as well as the rules concerning the retention of intellectual property rights in the 27 EU countries plus the UK.
Download the report for free here.
