Íban GARCÍA DEL BLANCO, (S&D, ES), rapporteur, hold a press conference on cultural diversity and the conditions for authors in the European music streaming market. The current rules leave a majority of authors receiving very low revenues. MEPs, the adopting a non legislative resolution, push to change the “pre-digital royalty rates” condemning the payola schemes that force authors to accept lower or no revenues in exchange for greater visibility. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

Culture (T2)

consumers' protection (T)

GARCÍA DEL BLANCO, Ibán (S&D, ES)

Press conference by Íban GARCÍA DEL BLANCO, (S&D, ES), rapporteur on cultural diversity and the conditions for authors in the European music streaming market

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/74130446/1705060208350_I251610Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ib&aacute;n GARC&Iacute;A DEL BLANCO (S&amp;D, ES), Rapporteur, Good afternoon to everybody and thank you for coming. Music is a fundamental pillar in culture, guaranteeing the cultural and linguistic diversity of our societies and it also plays a very important role in the cultural and creative sector. I would say that it is also an essential element of heritage conservation and memorial, not linguistically, but musically. They have been transmitted to us over time and, therefore, also shaping our own identity, knowledge, knowledge and feelings for many years.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The cultural and creative sector has also been identified as one of the 14 key ecosystems in the Union's economy, because of its importance in economic development and also because of its importance in terms of caring for and working with younger people. It is also an enormously productive sector that also generates thousands of jobs.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, For this reason, the Culture Committee of the European Parliament considered it necessary to carry out an exhaustive analysis of the continuous music market and the changes also caused by the digitalization of the sector. I have to say that this is the cultural sector or subsector that most quickly adapted to the phenomenon of digitalization and that, therefore, it has been anticipating many changes that have since taken place in other cultural subsectors, probably many of the imbalances that I am going to talk about now will be reproduced if we don't put a stop to other cultural subsectors as well.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, It was the first cultural industry to create legal channels for the distribution of content and therefore, also in the first, to obtain substantial benefits from a market that, paradoxically, with some things that I am going to tell you, has been getting bigger and bigger. It has been estimated that the global value of the sector has grown again this year, exceeding 40,000 million dollars, according to the latest report by Will Page, although there are those who estimate it to be between 22,000 and 30,000 million dollars, in any case, this is an absolutely enormous figure.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, However, as I said, it is a market that suffers from some imbalances that also need to be corrected for questions of justice first, but also for issues of sustainability and maintenance of the cultural scheme in the future. The report highlights some key messages. To begin with, it focuses on the fair distribution of benefits. The share of the benefits of streaming music continuously through digital platforms does not fairly reach the weakest parts of the value chain and, above all, to artists, authors or performers.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The report welcomes recent efforts by the sector to correct this imbalance lately. In recent months, we have seen some news that talks about how platforms or record labels themselves are proposing new models of relationships with authors or performers. I would say that it suspiciously coincides with the beginning of this report, but in any case it is welcome.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, In any case the report asks the European Commission to examine the correct application of the principle of adequate and proportionate remuneration established by the current copyright directive in the Digital Single Market, both in relation to the distribution of benefits by platforms and in contracts already existing in the sector.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, It also examines the concentration on the music industry and its impact on cultural diversity, the remuneration of authors and the competition policy itself. It is also requested that the Commission explore, in cooperation with interested parties, alternative models that are fairer for the redistribution of benefits.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, In the report, it also highlighted, as I said in this eminently digital market, on the importance of metadata, ensuring the visibility of authors on all services, regardless of the platform used from the first moment the song is uploaded. We need to have transparent, reliable and complete information for identification and, therefore, for there to be a correct payment to authors, artists, performers or performers.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The report also points out the importance of collective management and the importance it has in this sector. There are countries, such as mine, where even by law, it is mandatory for these collective management entities to dedicate a significant percentage of what they collect to social work or to an equitable distribution among the weakest parts of the chain.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The report also talks about education, the need to inform young authors especially, about the importance of being identified and properly compensated for their work. It talks about the value of music. It is a critical report with the systems that are becoming more widespread in a market, as I said, that already has many imbalances and is precarious in some of them.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, In some of its places, schemes such as those known as "payola" or pay for play are being generalized, which are being offered by some platforms on which the author renounces all his future rights simply because he has the possibility of having more visibility and therefore eroding the future of a career, the possible sustainability of a musical career towards the future.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The report also talks about the need to increase cultural diversity and promote innovation. That is why the need for algorithmic transparency is fixed on algorithmic transparency. We need to know how the algorithms used by large platforms work, what data they collect and what criteria they apply to prioritizing content to give prominence and facilitate the discovery of European works.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The European Commission is therefore asked to prepare a legislative proposal to guarantee European cultural diversity, let us not forget that this is a main mandate of the European Union Treaty, to establish promotional measures that provide space for minority trends and genders and for all languages. There may not be a problem in the digital music market with the majority or most spoken languages, but if you start to see it with the minority or least spoken languages.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, Platforms are also asked to include more means to combat fraud, abuse in the system and ensure that there are no biases and discrimination. That is why, as I say, there is an emphasis on algorithmic transparency. Finally, the report talks about the ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence, connected with what I just said in the current music industry.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The report, in this regard, was even ahead of its proposal to the Artificial Intelligence Act, calling for the regulation of generative artificial intelligence and establishing transparency obligations on inputs firstly, the copyright-protected data used in the training of generative Artificial Intelligence, and on the outputs generated and manipulated content manipulated by artificial intelligence. We want to end the use artists's images and voices without their consent.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, But to conclude, for the time being, the report includes measures that look to the future of this sector. It is proposed to start a European music observatory that collects data, analyzes trends and proposes legal solutions to the problems that are detected in the report or may be detected in the future. It also establishes the need to have a permanent forum for dialogue, integrating all interested parties in the continuous music market for the search for sustainable solutions towards fair compensation for authors and creators.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, We have just approved this morning in the European Parliament, we want the Creative Europe programme to be reinforced and also for it to be established in accordance with the importance of this sector, which I have spoken about, even with figures, to establish a European strategy for music.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, And finally, this report, as you well know, will definitely be voted on tomorrow and it is to be hoped that it will have massive support if the same schemes that worked in the Parliament's CULT Committee, where we had a complete support from all political groups. I end here and at your disposal for questions.

Q&A, Question regarding on next steps on streaming market.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, -

Q&A, Question regarding on the opposition of music streaming industry to this regulation.

Q&A, Question regarding on copyright law to prevent the use of intelligence artificial.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ibán GARCÍA DEL BLANCO (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, Thank you for the attitude the journalist sector had with this report. We are so pleased to have this exchange and have this interest or be witnesses of interest in the sector. It is quite importante in order to encourage the sector to correct by themselves some of the drawbanks that this market has already. This would be useful in the future, and of course, I am at your disposal if you have any kind of questions, any kind of doubts, of course we have to work a lot in advance. So, thank you so much.