On March 26, 2019, the European Parliament officially approved the final draft of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (EU Directive). The main feature is more liability placed on online content sharing service providers (OCSSP). To prevent copyright infringement, OCSSPs are obliged to obtain licenses from rightsholders and to pay remuneration, and they must remove content if infringement is discovered afterwards. EU Member States will amend their national laws within the next two years.

CISAC and CIAM have been actively seeking for a review on the European safe harbor legislation as a “transfer of value” issue.

Gadi Oron, CISAC Director General, welcomes the approval of the EU Directive and states: “The European Union has laid the foundation for a better and fairer digital environment - one in which creators will be in a stronger position to negotiate fair license fees when their works are used by big online platforms. This is a hugely important achievement not just for Europe, but for the millions of creators which CISAC represents across the world. We are grateful to all those in the European institutions who have tirelessly worked on this directive and hope that it will lead the way for countries outside the EU to follow” .

As a board member of CISAC, JASRAC also welcomes this approval by the European Parliament and will make efforts for the fair remuneration of creators around the world, including Japan.

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