On March 9 and 10, a face-to-face meeting of the Executive Council of FESAAL (Latin American Audiovisual Authors Societies Federation) was held in Chile.
The meeting, conducted in Santiago de Chile, was attended by Horacio Maldonado (Secretary General of DAC and FESAAL), by Dr. Luis Mangiavillano (Executive Director of DAC), by Daniella Castagno (President of ATN), by Silvio Caiozzi (Vice-president of ATN), by César Cuadra Bastidas (General Director of ATN), by Dr. Felipe Schuster (Legal Counselor of ATN), by Mario Mitrotti (President of DASC), by Sylvia Palma (Secretary General of GEDAR), by Miguel Ángel Diani (President of Argentores), by Germán Gutiérrez (Legal Counselor of Argentores), by Víctor Dínenzon (Treasurer of DAC), by Dr. Adriana Saldarriaga (Legal Counselor of DASC and REDES) and by Alexis Buenseñor (President of AGADU).
During the sessions, Dr. Rafael Fariñas, Regional Director of Latin America and the Caribbean of CISAC, Regional Bureau with headquarters in Santiago de Chile, was invited to participate in order to coordinate joint future actions between both entities in support and collaboration with Latin American audiovisual authors.
Among the various topics discussed at the meeting, the authorities of ATN Chile - the host society of the meeting – recalled the difficulties of recent years in the context of the struggle for the rights of authors of their Directors and Screenwriters, due to the social outbreak which took place in Chile in 2019 and the immediate start of the pandemic due to COVID-19. In contrast with this harsh past, it is important to highlight the recent dismissal of the Chilean justice regarding the complaint of the television channel Mega so that the right of Collective Management Entities to set their fees is declared unconstitutional.
The different advances that have been achieved by the collective management societies in recent negotiations with streaming content platforms were presented and, at the same time, the legal situation concerning the Rights of Authors of Audiovisual Authors in South Korea was explained and a probable agenda of topics and activities was presented with a view to the next International Annual Congress of AVACI (Audiovisual Authors International Confederation), to be held in Seoul – South Korea from May 17 to May 19, 2022. This will be the first Congress of AVACI to be conducted in person since the beginning of the pandemic generated by the COVID-19 virus.
From the presentations made at the meeting, the recent advances achieved by the different collective management societies concerning the rights of audiovisual creators within their countries were revealed.
This shows the importance of the joint work coordinated by FESAAL as well as the success that is being generated with the task of unifying the struggle of authors’ rights concerning Audiovisual Authors throughout the region.