The KEA Blog

The European Proposal for a Directive on Orphan Works: a partial attempt to speed-up digitisation of European cultural heritage

On 24th of May 2011, the European Commission published its long awaited Proposal for a Directive on Orphan Works. This timely proposal is meant to find a Europe-wide solution to the issue of orphan works. Nevertheless, rather than providing a true solution to the question, its provisions reflect that more debate on how to reconcile authors' rights and consumers' rights to access in an online environment -as well as on how to conciliate public and private interests of those involved in digitisation initiatives- is needed before engaging in legislative steps.

Free flow of Culture – Asymmetric expectations in Europe and in China? 文化的自由流动 - 中欧间不同的期待？

Chinese translation (scroll down)

China has made the development of its creative and cultural industries a policy priority. Massive investments are directed at State, Regional, District and Municipal levels to this effect.

Cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are at the forefront of a policy driven essentially by economic considerations: develop a service economy capable of producing and distributing entertainment, design, in valorising the local craftsmanship and raw materials (silk for instance) to cater for the Chinese audience but also to export Chinese cultural goods and services abroad. 

Shanghai and Shenzhen estimate that around 7% of the city’s GDP stems from culture and creative industries. Beijing put this figure at 12% with a larger definition of CCIs which include sport, tourism and business software.  Large culture and creative industry trade fairs are taking place throughout China, creative clusters or parks are burgeoning throughout with a view to build capacity. Universities have set up specialized departments to study the economics of the culture industry and consider policies to nurture this particular economic sector. Large industrial conglomerates, whether public or private, active in real estate or the energy sector are devoting increasingly large investments to the development of creative industries, perceived as a key growth sector.

Observations following the Hungarian EU Presidency Conference on Culture and EU 2020 (Budapest, 1st March 2011)

The pace and discussion at the conference did not reflect that it is now the 11^th hour: the EU budget to carry out culture policy will be decided in the coming weeks.  It will settle the fate of EU culture programmes (including the MEDIA programme) until 2020.

Unfortunately the captive and resilient audience composed mainly of national representatives from EU Member‘s ministries of culture was told by a high level EC official that stakeholders still had to develop the narratives to justify investment in culture.

Well I told myself that (angrily I must admit):

-          It took only 6 months for the EC’s DG Enterprise to develop a narrative to set up the European Creative Industry Alliance and finance pilot actions with Euro 8 million funding.  It’s now been 4 years since the cultural agenda was adopted - arguing that the sector should still be looking for a narrative is just not possible.

-          Regions and cities as well as some States (such as Estonia and Finland which made the case brilliantly in Budapest) have developed wonderful narratives on the impact of culture investment.

-          We are still addressing culture policy as if Google, Apple, Amazon or Spotify did not exist.

The new ‘Marco Polo adventure’

In October 2010, at the European Union (EU)/China High Level Cultural Forum, the Chinese and European authorities engaged to launch a new ‘Marco Polo adventure’ under the auspices of the Year of the EU-China Intercultural Dialogue in 2012. Back in the XIII century, Marco Polo embarked in a business voyage which ended up in a revelatory meeting between two continents, cultures, languages and traditions. It was the start of a new era of economic and cultural exchanges between Europe and China.   

China and the EU are key commercial partners. In 2009, bilateral trade reached € 296 billion from € 4 billion in 1978[1]. However, cultural exchange is still underdeveloped. In 2004, China represented only 2.9% of the EU 27’s cultural trade abroad and only 5.1% in 2007[2].

Commissioned by MOFCOM (the Chinese Ministry of Trade) and the European Commission (EC) as part of the ‘EU-China Project on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights’ (IPR2), KEA’s Working Paper “Mapping the Cultural and Creative Sectors in the EU and China”[3] is the first step in a process aimed at developing business and trade exchanges between European and Chinese cultural and creative industries (CCIs). 

 

Territorial exploitation of copyrights under threat

Advocate General’s opinion in the Premier league case: the territorial exploitation of copyrights under threat

Introduction

The High Court of Justice in the UK has addressed a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the EU in relation to two actions brought against suppliers of equipment and satellite decoder cards to pubs and bars in the UK. The Football Association Premier League (FAPL) and Media Protection Services Ltd claim that access in the UK to live football matches through non-UK satellite channels (Greek NOVA channel) which use authorized decoder cards outside their territory infringe their rights on satellite transmission of their football matches. The reason is that under the licensing agreement with FAPL broadcasting organizations can only broadcast live football matches in their own territory and are therefore prohibited from using the decoder cards outside this area. In her opinion the Advocate General (AG) has analyzed the so-called grey market for satellite transmissions of live football matches that according to the KEA Study on the Conditional Access Directive is the main form of cross-border broadcasting[1].  In her attempt at whitening this market the AG announces quasi-mandatory pan-European licences for transfrontier pay TV-services.  

 

Koło zamachowe zamiast fajerwerków

Kreatywność jest dla artystów jest tym, czym dla naukowców albo inżynierów innowacja – narzędziem do wytwarzania realnej zmiany. O nowej definicji klasy kreatywnej, potencjalne Brukseli i o sposobach na czerpanie zysków z kultury opowiada Phillippe Kern

EU Observer Conference 26 January 2011 - Philippe Kern's keynote on Cultural Diversity and EU 2020 - Transcription

I have been asked to consider whether cultural diversity is part of the EU 2020 project which is to make a smart, inclusive and sustainable Europe.

People want jobs, prosperity – this requires our economy to grow and our industries to be more productive and competitive. Can cultural diversity contribute and in which ways?  

The premises of this presentation are that the European project is the fruit, the result of tensions between cultures, identities, ideas.  This tension and differences have led to wars between European nations in the past but has also led to the European project.    60 years later these cultural differences have made Europe the largest trading bloc in the world and the wealthiest.  It is the confrontation, the pluralism of languages and cultures that has liberated thoughts, promoted intellectual exchanges, scientific and artistic development, and openness to the world.  This diversity should continue to shape Europe’s destiny and sustain the European dream.

The presentation will :

-          Review EU 2020 and the flagship initiatives in light of cultural diversity.
-          Consider the single market challenges in light of cultural diversity.
-          Examine the contribution of cultural diversity to EU 2020.

To read the full transcription: http://www.keanet.eu/docs/culturaldiversity%20eu2020.pdf

 

Public Consultation on the CIP programme - KEA’s contribution – CIP to Promote Creativity

 This contribution to the CIP public consultation aims to show that culture and creative industries as well as the promotion of cultural diversity should be part of the CIP programme to implement the EU 2020 project which is to make a smart, inclusive and sustainable Europe.  The Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) (http://ec.europa.eu/cip/index_en.htm) is one of the key funding instruments in support of competitiveness.

Summary of Proposals:

1. CIP should be part of the cultural agenda as culture is a catalyst for creativity.
2. CIP needs to recognise the cross-sectoral and multi-disciplinary aspects of “creativity” which mixes elements of “artistic creativity”, “economic” as well as “technological innovation”.
3. CIP should be more accessible to creative industries to implement a linkage between creativity and innovation. It should foster ICT and Creative industries incubation schemes to promote spill overs.
4. CIP should support investment in culture and creative industries  ( and specifically mandate the EIB and the EIF).
5. CIP should support the ECIA initiative – European Creative Industry Alliance and tailor support measures to creative SMEs.
6. CIP should establish a creativity index or complement the innovation scoreboard with creativity indicators. (See KEA suggestion in this respect in the study “The Impact of Culture on Creativity” – Annex 2).
7. CIP should support SMEs in the creative sector to achieve scale (acting collectively so that they can influence market development – as European SMEs often command collectively a 25% market share in the respective cultural sectors) and make rights licensing less costly. CIP has yet to engage with SMEs from the culture and creative sector.  
8. CIP should contribute to celebrate and brand “a Creative Europe” in a large promotional campaign  in conjunction with other EU programmes such as the Culture Programme;    Europe to celebrate the contemporary and not only the heritage.  
9. CIP to fund studies on the importance of brands, creativity and the immaterial in innovation strategies and competitiveness.
10.  CIP should fund benchmarking raster/indicators to measure impact of local policy measures to support CIs.

To read the full document :http://www.keanet.eu/docs/CIP%20contribution%20final.pdf

 

EU Observer Conference: Cultural Diversity and Europe 2020: nuisance or necessity?

See below link to an Interview given at the conference on 26 January 2011 by Philippe Kern :

 http://www.youtube.com/euobservertv#p/u/9/hxYaZgpwqC0

 

 

2010 The Year of Culture and Creativity in Europe in review

Culture and creative industries gain more political attention

In April the European Commission published its Green paper on culture and creative industries.  The document is the first ever EC paper on culture and creative industries. It officially acknowledges the economic and social importance of the sector and its contribution to social inclusion and competitiveness.  

On 26 May, the Competitiveness Council of the European Union (EU), which gathers Ministers from the 27 EU Member States to discuss policies and actions related to the internal market, research and industry, recognised the role of culture-based creativity as a driver of innovation. 

Moreover the Innovation Union flagship Initiative endorses a broad definition of innovation, including creativity. It states: “The creativity and diversity of our people and the strength of European creative industries, offer huge potential for new growth and jobs through innovation, especially for SMEs” [1].

DG Enterprise announced a new policy initiative to support SMEs and creative entrepreneurship with the launch of the European Creative Industry Alliance (ECIA) in 2011.

In an EP report Dutch MEP Schaake is suggesting that the newly formed external actions service appoint in each delegation in third countries a person responsible for culture.