The American group Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, has signed an agreement with a large copyright society, SACD, to remunerate the authors of audiovisual works (films, shows, etc.) viewed on its platforms, have announces the two parties on Tuesday.
This agreement covers France, Belgium and Luxembourg. The amount of the authors’ remuneration has not been revealed.
“Users could continue, on Meta platforms, to view and share freely within their communities the works of the SACD repertoire. The authors of these works will be referenced in,” the two parties said in a statement.
The SACD represents more than 60,000 authors in the fields of cinema, animation, audiovisual fiction, theatre, comedy shows, radio, podcasts and even digital creation. It negotiates on their behalf, collects and distributes their royalties (nearly 200 million euros in 2021).
This agreement is the equivalent of a first of this type signed in May by Meta with another copyright society, the Scam (Civil society of multimedia authors).
The latter brings together authors of documentaries or reports, while the repertoire of the SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) is essentially made up of works of fiction.
In both cases, these agreements require the European directive on copyright adopted in the spring of 2019. It is intended to adapt to digital platforms legislation dating from 2001, when they did not yet exist or were experimenting with their first not.
Via this agreement, the SACD “continues (…) its efforts so that each platform distributing the works of its repertoire is not the stowaway of copyright”, revealed its director general, Pascal Rogard, quoted in the communicated.
“Meta’s commitment to this is a big step forward that should be welcomed,” he added.
“This agreement testifies to the strength of the collaboration of online platforms and rights holders to defend intellectual property and support audiovisual creation”, commented Laurent Solly, vice-president Southern Europe of Meta.
To remunerate the authors, digital tools are used to identify the content concerned on Facebook or Instagram and know when and how it is shared.
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