Protecting IP Rights
Illegal use of and access to our works is a serious threat for our industry and to the necessary recoupment of the significant investments in production.
At stake is producers’ ability to recoup investments and for their creative and business partners to continue to create new stories. Every year, new productions cannot be launched, and jobs are not created, if not destroyed.
Piracy is universal insofar it does not affect only some types of productions or specific countries. FIAPF advocates for a full alignment of the rules applying in the physical world and on the internet as regards illegal use of and access to our productions.
We want consumers to have reassurances about the legality of online service when they seek to watch a film online.
Our industry has proactively been embracing digital opportunities in all parts of film production and distribution since the past two decades, including with an ever-growing legal offer online responding to consumers’ expectation both in terms of variety of content and new ways to enjoy our productions. Our industry’s decision to offer multiple distribution and access options both offline and online are made despite the presences of online piracy which acts as unfair and illegal competition. Very often, a potential consumer ready to pay for watching a film is directed to illegal offer – this is unacceptable both for us and for the consumer. Our response is increasing information to consumers for example by developing tools to guide consumers to the legal offer.
Accountability of all businesses operating in the online environment is a key concern for our industry.
In particular, we support efforts to ensure online commercial activities are not conducted in an anonymous manner.
We support easy and straightforward solutions to provide more transparency on the identity of business operators on the Internet such as Know-Your-Business-Customer requirement under consideration in the European Union in the context of the Digital Services Act.
See also kybc.eu
