On 24 and 25 October, AEPO-ARTIS – in collaboration with AZAS, AIPA and the North Macedonian IPO – organised a two-day regional conference in Skopje on “EU Enlargement and Copyright Law: What’s next for actors in the Western Balkans?”
The conference brought together government officials, representatives of collective management organisations as well as unions and guilds from the region to share their insights on the most recent developments and upcoming challenges to make their local audiovisual sector a sustainable working environment for actors.
With more than 50 participants from more than 12 countries, the conference exceeded all expectations.
The conference was opened by Orhan Murtezani, Minister of EU Affairs of North Macedonia who welcomed the initiative and emphasized that the reform of copyright and related rights has been high on the agenda of the North Macedonian government as part of their path to EU membership. This was confirmed by Maria Kanellopoulou, Head of the EU Delegation to North Macedonia, who emphasised the importance of cultural cooperation as a tool towards EU-enlargement and the role that intellectual property rights play in this. Gregor Presker, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia in Skopje, was present to acknowledge the big role Slovenia has played and will continue to play in the region for what concerns the joint pursuit of modern legislations to protect actors. The opening session was closed by Tilo Gerlach who reminded us of the role AEPO-ARTIS played in the support of performer CMOs during the last large EU-enlargement and confirmed our commitment to repeat the exercise with the new EU candidate member states.
The conference then took off with a short but all-encompassing overview by Ioan Kaes on 60 years of performer rights at international and EU level. The EU acquis for actors, or rather its shortcomings, was reflected against the development of collective management for actors in a growing union. Uroš Rožič from AIPA shared some positive examples that the implementation of the 2019 DSM Directive brought for actors in the EU, with of course a focus on the recent legislation in Slovenia.
Within two days, five Western Balkan countries got their own dedicated session. Representatives of the IPOs and IP experts from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Kosovo and of course North Macedonia provided key-insights in the recent and upcoming legislative changes with a focus on the rules on cable retransmission, private copying, making available and collective management. For each session the theoretical expositions were countered by hands-on testimonies from representatives of CMOs and actors making it clear that the work does not stop with adopting new legislation. Panels that brought together all participants to the sessions completed the the exchange exercise.
The closing remarks were provided by Gregor Štibernik from AIPA who stated: “As the Western Balkans move towards EU accession, the audiovisual sector faces both opportunities and challenges in adapting to European standards. Actors, as key contributors to this sector, need robust protections, fair remuneration, and strengthened collective management structures to thrive in this new landscape.” He then concluded with 7 recommendations of which strengthening regional cooperation and supporting CMOs to empower them further as advancers of fair remuneration of performers were without a doubt the most important takeaways.
As the Western Balkans move closer to EU membership, AEPO-ARTIS will increase its focus on the region, building on the fruitful cooperation for actors found in Skopje and setting up a similar exercise for the musicians in the near future.
