The Minister of Culture and National Heritage promised statutory internet royalties for filmmakers. Prior to this, a delegation of filmmakers selected by the Youth Circle of the Polish Filmmakers Association, consisting of Katarzyna Warzecha, Zuzanna Grajcewicz, Mateusz Banasiuk, Łukasz Ronduda and Małgorzata Machczyńska, held an official meeting with the Minister of Culture Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, Secretary of State Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus and Deputy Minister of Culture Andrzej Wyrobiec.
We implement the law on the use of royalties on the internet and include it in this law for creators and performers. It is about the right to collect royalties resulting from the reproduction of their works on the internet - emphasised Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz.
Currently, with an annual revenue of at least 2.6 billion PLN on the Polish VOD market, creators are still not paid any royalties. Today, the Ministry announced groundbreaking changes.
Collecting societies representing artists, as well as the artists themselves, have formed a united front demanding copyright under European law, the Minister of Culture noted
The Minister of Culture admitted that he understood during this week how important this issue is to us and that the film community is speaking with one voice, said Katarzyna Warzecha, director and co-organiser of the protests by young filmmakers and member of the SFP Youth Circle, commenting on the meeting at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
We are happy that Article 70 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, which provides for statutory royalties for creators, will be extended to include online exploitation. We have been fighting for this for the last two years, said Małgorzata Machczyńska, legal advisor to SFP-ZAPA.
Environmental solidarity, film, dialogue and democracy won. The minister fully supported our demands and promised to return to statutory solutions related to internet royalties. This means the introduction of full royalties from all streaming services and VOD portals for all filmmakers and performers,’ said Dominik Skoczek, director of SFP-ZAPA.
We want to achieve a situation in the final in the Sejm, in which the government, the parliamentary majority and the creators will stand shoulder to shoulder for this new law - the Minister of Culture and National Heritage indicated that the bill is to be sent to the Sejm within 2-3 weeks.
The director of SFP-ZAPA also presented the next steps in the introduction of provisions on internet royalties.
The bill will be submitted for approval by the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers and by the Council of Ministers. It will then go to Parliament, where it will most likely be processed as urgent, due to the penalties that the Court of Justice can impose at any time for failure to implement an EU directive by the deadline. After the votes in the Sejm and the Senate, the new regulations will be presented to the President for signature. However, our fight does not end today. We will closely monitor further legislative work to ensure that the law beneficial to filmmakers comes into force without undue delay.