EuroFIA Meeting, Madrid, 28 June 2022
The European group of the International Federation of Actors (EuroFIA) brings together performers’ unions, guilds and professional associations from across the EU, the UK, EFTA and accession countries, representing tens of thousands of performers, including dancers, across Europe.
EuroFIA is greatly concerned about the brutal decision of streamers to reject “en bloc” the legitimate claims of performers and other content creators in Create Denmark who, together with the Danish Producers’ Association, were seeking a fair and proportionate remuneration for the exploitation of their work on those platforms.
The unilateral decision of these dominant market operators to stop developing new Danish drama instead, suddenly leaves creators and producers without jobs and income. Despite the large profits made by these powerful corporations during the Covid-19 crisis, this openly defiant behaviour is yet another proof of the systemic market distortion in the audiovisual industry, where only a few players concentrate most of the value and can behave as they see fit. The business model that streamers are keen to enforce is not only detrimental to the livelihood of performers and other creators, but also to the local audiovisual ecosystem, disrupting an established practice of shared economic success, which has delivered sustainable careers, content diversity and quality drama in Denmark for several decades.
By exploiting their dominant position and their enormous purchasing power streamers are pressuring Danish creators and producers into submission, forcing them to cave into their demands. This behaviour shows how important it is for EU member States to meaningfully transpose the 2019 Copyright directive, by granting creators an enabling legal framework to extract a fair value from the rights they are trading. It also shows the significance of building strong alliances among creators to resist the pressure towards ever lower standards.
EuroFIA stands in solidarity with Create Denmark and calls on streaming platforms to engage on fair terms with the creative community in the country, with a view to resuming production as soon as possible.
Download the Resolution in PDF format here.
