Between July 6 and 14, 2023, representatives of the Latin American Audiovisual Authors Societies Federation (FESAAL) participated in the meeting with authorities of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), within the framework of the sixty-fourth series of meetings of the Assemblies of States which are part of WIPO-OMPI, held in Geneva, Switzerland.
The WIPO is a United Nations body, self-financed, dedicated to information and international cooperation policies on intellectual property.
On behalf of FESAAL, Doctor Adriana Saldarriaga (representative of DASC Colombia and member of the Legal and Technical Committee of AVACI) and the lawyers specialized in authors’ rights, Luis Mangiavillano (DAC) and Germán Gutiérrez (ARGENTORES) were present.
The participation of FESAAL at the Assembly had the purpose to speak out and draw the attention of the Permanent Committee on Authors’ Rights, to address a key issue such as the defense of Authors’ Rights for screenwriters and directors of audiovisual works.
At the time of taking the floor, Doctor Adriana Saldarriaga stated that “the audiovisual work societies of screenwriters and directors from Latin America gathered in FESAAL, in collaboration with European societies, exercise the right to remuneration in collective management. This right recognizes the additional compensation in favor of screenwriters and directors who assigned their rights or who worked on behalf of the producer”.
Likewise, she explained that “the additional compensation is generated when the audiovisual work is communicated, all this without affecting the free disposition of the intellectual property assigned to producers. The evolution of the Internet and of OTT platforms has positively affected authors’ rights as long as an additional compensation is granted to its creators, and the right to remuneration has demonstrated to be the solution”.
Finally, Adriana Saldarriaga highlighted that “this situation should not be omitted from the WIPO agenda and, due to the interest shown by different governments on this issue, from FESAAL we offer to provide the necessary data to perform an assessment on the efficiency of this right to remuneration in territories where it is not applied”.
It is important to stress that, in October 2021, the WIPO included FESAAL in its list of organizations with the status of observing member, with the purpose to foster the participation of non-governmental and other interest groups in debates on matters related to intellectual property.