Robert Ashcroft's letter to the FT
16 November 2018 - Press releaseAs the Chief Executive of a company that represents over 135,000 music creators, I read Susan Wojcicki’s piece in Monday’s Financial Times (YouTube chief says EU copyright plan could lead to blocked access) with a mixture of incredulity and despair.
Over the last few weeks, Ms Wojcicki has been extremely vocal in her attempts to paint Article 13 of the proposed EU Copyright Directive as the harbinger of ‘unintended consequences’ for the creator economy.
I am not at all surprised by this, because since July this year YouTube has continued to spread misinformation about Article 13 in a direct attempt to subvert the democratic process. Despite this, on September 12th members of the European Parliament voted to send the draft Copyright Directive into the final stage of its legislative journey before it passes into law.
This draft Directive is the product of over four years of debate, research, deliberation and impact assessment, during which, all stakeholders have been invited to provide evidence. The purpose of the proposed legislation is to create a fair and efficient marketplace for creative content on the Internet, which would mean that at long last those who wrote it might be fairly remunerated.
Ms Wojcicki does not offer a shred of evidence to support her claims that Article 13 will harm the creative community. The music industry, on the other hand, has laid out ample evidence that current legislation, via its ‘safe harbour’ regime, favours both YouTube and other platforms to the detriment of the economy as a whole. There is no doubt that YouTube is a valuable promotional platform for performers, but that does nothing for the songwriter. This is wrong and must be corrected.
The European Commission, Council and Parliament have devoted years of effort to find a just solution to this problem, and the principle of a fair and functioning market, as embodied in Article 13, should be upheld. Rightsholders want their content to be enjoyed; they simply want to know what is being enjoyed, by how many, and that they might be paid a fair price for it.
It is imperative that the EU Parliament, Council and Commission resist what I consider to be fake news, untruths and alarmist propaganda being circulated by multi-billion-pound internet companies that have for so long unfairly profited at the expense of our creative industries.
Yours sincerely
Robert Ashcroft
Chief Executive, PRS for Music
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