C4C Holds Two Succesful Events for European Policymakers with Libraries, Consumers at the Library of the European Parliament, Brussels

On May 30th, C4C, in cooperation with library and consumer organisations, co-organised two events on copyright limitations and exceptions in the library of the European Parliament in Brussels. The events, which were hosted by Dutch Member of Parliament Marietje Schaake, focused on how copyright could better serve the needs of libraries and consumers respectively. In the audience were Members of the European Parliament, European Commission staff, and representatives from library and consumer organizations, NGOs, industry and rightsholder associations. Thanks to a mix of expert presentations, Oxford-style debates and an open and inclusive format, participants were able to address a number of “difficult” issues in a constructive and thought-provoking manner.

What copyright reforms are needed by libraries?

The first event, titled “Index or footnote? How to ensure that libraries power the information society”, was organised in partnership with the European Bureau of Library Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA), the Electronic Information For Libraries (eIFL), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and Information Sans Frontières (ISF). It focused on the role of libraries and archives in providing access to cultural works, the many legal challenges they face in the digital world and how it impacts innovation, competition, and productivity.

In her welcome address, Member of Parliament Marietje Schaake reminded the attendees of the important role libraries played in today’s information society. In the following keynote presentation, Kai Ekholm, the national librarian of Finland, touched on a number of current challenges for libraries, including the “new book economy” which threatens to create increasingly closed systems and new monopolies in the printing sector, and the need for public funding and market solutions to help libraries carry out their function in the digital environment. The following panel discussion, moderated by a noted musician and music producer Martyn Ware and with the participation of Toby Bainton (senior policy adviser, ISF), Pernille Drost (president, Danish Library Union), Mariana Harjevschi (director, Public Law Library in Chisinau, Moldova), and Harald Müller (library director, Max Planck Institute for comparative public law and international law) highlighted the need for a copyright regime that’s fit for the digital age, in particular in the areas of preservation (where the law often permits only one copy to be made whereas digital material usually requires several copies); contracts (which are essential for online material but which should never override statutory copyright provisions); liability (which should provide some protection for cultural institutions acting in good faith); reproduction; lending; and orphan works (for which policymakers were asked to provide practical, usable solutions that will enable mass digitisation).

A brief overview of the international copyright landscape by Lucie Guibault, senior researcher at the University of Amsterdam, was followed by an introduction by Barbara Szczepanska, the Library and Information Services Manager at the law firm Hogan Lovell in Warsaw, to a Draft Treaty Proposal by library organisations which is currently being discussed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

In the second panel of the morning, MEP Marietje Schaake, head of the Copyright Unit at the European Commission Maria Martin-Prat, and Counsellor for Intellectual Property at the BrazilianMission to the EU Luciano Mazza de Andrade, discussed the international political processes that could strengthen copyright limitations and exceptions for libraries. While Brazil is one of the leading voices at WIPO in support of an international instrument on exceptions for libraries, the European Union, led by the European Commission, is more reluctant to engage in any exercise that could lead to a binding solution. It was noted by the panelists, however, that libraries now have more of a voice in Brussels and offer valuable opinions at a time when the Commission is considering important legislative reforms such as those on orphan works and collecting societies.
Participants of the event had many opportunities to participate in the discussions throughout the morning. As one could expect from such a diverse group of policy experts, a wide range of viewpoints were expressed. While many were in support of copyright reform that would benefit libraries, some considered the current copyright framework flexible enough for the needs of libraries.

How can we make copyright work for consumers?

The afternoon session, titled “I want it now! Creators addressing consumers’ needs in the digital age” was co-organised with the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC) and Consumers International (CI). In his introduction, BEUC’s Kostas Rossoglou pointed out that certain uses of copyrighted material such as the recording of TV shows for later viewing or the scanning of studio portraits onto one’s computer have become common practice among consumers, are generally tolerated by rightsholders but their lawfulness varies country-by-country. This can lead to frustration among consumers who often fail to understand copyright and may undermine its legitimacy among certain groups.

The introduction set the stage for the following three Oxford-style debates on specific copyright propositions. Each side had five minutes to make their arguments and 2.5 minutes for rebuttal. It was agreed that all speakers participated in their personal capacity and no quotes will be attributed to their institutions.

Debate 1: There are uses of music in education that should never require payment.

The first debate was moderated by IFLA’s Director of Policy Stuart Hamilton. The “pro” side, represented by Martyn Ware and the ex-president of the Dutch collecting society Buma/Stemra Konrad Boehmer, argued that the Berne convention only covers the commercial use of author’s rights and collecting societies should limit themselves to collecting royalties for those uses. The non-commercial, private use of works such as those by educational institutions should be free. No obstacles should prevent composers to be heard in schools.

The “contra” side, which was represented by CISAC’s Communications Manager Marianne Rollet and Buma/Stemra’s Public Affairs manager Robbert Baruch, acknowledged that schools should only pay a nominal fee for the use of works but stressed the importance of the fundamental principle of creators being justly remunerated for their work. Educational institutions still need to pay for other services such as electricity. Why should it be different for cultural works?

The other side replied that it is not worth collecting a token fee and pointed out that collecting societies are already making exceptions to that fundamental principle, e.g. they do not collect money at funerals. As long as the use of a work is not of a commercial nature, no royalties should be collected. The “contra” side rebutted that argument by saying that no creation comes for free and not paying for its use diminishes the value of culture and goes against pluralism in creativity. In addition to that, there are many grey areas where there is no clear distinction between commercial and non-commercial uses. It was suggested by somebody from the audience that all creators should be free to choose how they want to be remunerated for their work since modern technology allows us to have a much more personalised rights management system.

Debate 2: Users and creators must be able to use copyrighted material to produce a new compound work for non-commercial purposes without needing a licence

The second debate, which was moderated by Nick Ashton-Hart from the Computer and Communications Industry Association featured Paul Keller from Creative Commons and Kelvin Smits from Younison, Europe’s association of independent musicians, on the “pro” side. The “contra” side was represented by Liv Vaisberg from the Federation of European Publishers and Mario Peña from the copyright registry Safe Creative.

The “contra” team noted they had no problem with the proposition per se as long as 1) the original creator is correctly credited to respect his or her moral rights, 2) the use is strictly non-commercial, 3) the original author will be informed of the use (and can prevent it if desired) and, 4) remunerated should the work become commercial. Copyright already allows you to quote – or “sample” – works for free as long as the use is not commercial. The problem is that with the Internet, it is often no longer clear whether a use is commercial or not.

According to the “pro” side, the current copyright regime, which requires a license for every snippet of music, hampers creativity as it makes it financially impossible for compound works to be commercially released. Typically, 100% of the profit of a track created using samples of music, even if they are not recognisable, will be lost in licensing fees. The current system only works for major artists whose labels can pay the licensing fees and leads to two different classes of creators.

The “contra” side replied that intermediaries such as Youtube and Flickr do make money off of compound works. Why shouldn’t some of that money go back to the original creator? The other side agreed and replied that those platforms do, in fact, collect money and re-distribute it to some of the original creators. All panelists agreed that licensing should become more flexible and allow creators to determine how their works can be used.

A member of the audience pointed out that creators have always been stealing from each other. Composers such as Schubert, Schumann and Mozart were all ‘sampling’ from their colleagues and would all be considered ‘pirates’ today. However, it is important to note that making a reference to an existing song does not reduce the commercial value of the original, quite to the contrary, it makes it more interesting.

Debate 3: Consumers should be able to use lawfully-acquired/licensed copyrighted material for any purpose within their home and personal network

In the final debate of the day, moderated by Jeremy Malcolm from Consumers International, consumer representatives David Hammerstein and Joe McNamee discussed with Elisabeth Sjaastad from the Federation of European Film Directors and Burak Özgen, the Senior Legal Advisor at GESAC, the European association of authors and composers societies.

The “pro” side started by saying that one of the fundamental problems of the digital marketplace is that the copyright industries do not trust consumers. Unlike other products they purchase, consumer can not use digital works the way they want. Technical limitations make it impossible for consumers to make backup copies, shift it to a different format and share it with their personal network. The fact that the majority of EU citizens breach copyright law on a daily basis makes it clear that the current regime is not widely accepted.

The other side agreed that private copies should be allowed but they need to be accompanied by a fair compensation for rightholders. Ideally, the remuneration should be determined according to the actual use of the products for private copying – based on consumer surveys by the right holders and the ICT industry. In countries where there is no private copying exception and no accompanying remuneration, the costs for licensing private copies are reflected in the license fee and right holders use technical restrictions to limit the number of private copies.

Further, the “contra” side held that the line between exploitation and personal enjoyment has never been completely obvious, and has gotten more difficult to discern as networked digital technology enables ordinary people to engage in acts of mass dissemination at virtually no expense. Where a private use competes with commercial uses at the heart of the copyright owner’s exploitation of his or her works, the potential of this private use to undermine the possibility to recoup an already highly risky initial investment should be a cause for concern. This could ultimately threaten the public’s interest in an adequate supply of professional creative works.

The “pro” side countered that rather than focusing on limiting access to their works, the entertainment industry should do more to create a competitive legal marketplace for digital works. The real drivers of piracy are inadequate pricing models and the lack of a single market for digital products in Europe. The “contra” side pointed that there is not enough demand for global or pan-european licenses at the moment. In addition to that, the current models used to finance the production of cultural works often rely on territorial licensing. For example, to receive funding for a film, one might need to give away the distribution rights in certain territories. As long as producers are dependent on this model, we will not be able to create a single market.

As Jeremy Malcolm pointed out in his wrap-up presentation there are a number of measures that could help to address the perceived imbalance of copyright legislation caused by recent developments such as term extensions, anti-circumvention laws, the HADOPI law in France and ACTA. These may include gratuitous collective licensing of certain uses to consumers, an agreed moratorium on enforcement of rights for such uses, or a set of best practice guidelines that consumers and creators could agree upon. The main outcome of the event was a broad consensus to move forward on the last of these suggestions, by way of work towards the development of a best practice standard.

More than 100 guests registered for the two events, and based on the feedback we received most of them saw the two events as a positive contribution to the European copyright debate. We hope they help drive legislative reforms that will accommodate the needs of libraries, archives, memory institutions and consumers in the digital age. Stay tuned for more events in 2012!

Further reading:

Speakers’ Bios

Marietje Schaake

Marietje Schaake is a Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Democratic Party (D66) with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) political group. She serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, where she focuses on neighbourhood policy, Turkey in particular; human rights, with a specific focus on freedom of expression, internet freedom, press freedom; and Iran. In the Committee on Culture, Media, Education, Youth and Sports she works on Europe’s Digital Agenda and the role of culture and new media in the EUŽs external actions. In the Committee on International Trade she focuses on intellectual property rights, the free flow of information and the relation between trade and foreign affairs.
Marietje is a member of the delegation for relations with the United States and a substitute member on the delegations with Iran and the Western Balkan countries. She is also a founder of the European Parliament Intergroup on New Media and Technology. Marietje is a Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and vice-president of the supervisory board of Free Press Unlimited.
Before joining the European Parliament, she worked as an independent advisor to governments, diplomats, businesses and NGO’s, on issues of transatlantic relations, diversity and pluralism, civil and human rights.

Kai Ekholm

Ph.D. Kai Ekholm has been the Director of the National Library of Finland since the year 2002. He received the honorary title of Professor in 2004. In 2009, the Governing Board of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) nominated Ekholm as the Chairman of FAIFE (Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression). Kai Ekholm has lectured on censorship and the freedom of speech for about twenty years. During his career, he has written over 20 books on electronic publication and censorship. His online publications include Kielletyt kirjat (Banned Books, 1997). In his doctoral thesis (2000) Ekholm treated political censorship in Finnish libraries from 1944 to 1946.

Martyn Ware

Martyn Ware was a founding member of the internationally successful pop bands the Human League and Heaven 17 and a producer of multi-million-selling worldwide hit recordings for Tina Turner, Terence Trent D’Arby, Chaka Khan, Erasure, Marc Almond and Mavis Staples amongst many others. He also lectures extensively on music production, technology and creativity and creates cutting edge three-dimensional sound and light-based multimedia installations in collaboration with other creators. He brings an understanding of how performers, composers, and digital artists collaborate in digital media and the inherent needs they have to reuse and transform creative works of other as a part of that process.

Toby Bainton

Toby Bainton is Senior Policy Adviser at Information Sans Frontieres. Toby spent the first part of his career working in university libraries, most recently as the director of the library of the University of Reading (60 km west of London). He then became (1995-2010) the chief executive of the association of UK and Irish university librarians, SCONUL. He is now senior policy adviser for Information Sans Frontieres, a group which works to promote favourable laws and policies for cultural institutions, especially in the European Parliament, the Commission, and the Council of Ministers.

Pernille Drost

Pernille Drost is the President of the Danish Trade Union representing 4.000 library- and information specialists, from both the public and private sector. Pernille Drost is member of The Council for Protection of Intellectual Works (UBVA) in Denmark and previous member of the IFLA/FAIFE committee. She is a public speaker on library issues and the development of information competencies both as an individual and as society. She is also a debater on copyright issues and the conditions for accessing and distributing information with emphasis to the (in)balance between the publishing industry, libraries and copyright legislation. Pernille Drost also holds seats in various boards and committees primarily within the labour market and educational area.

Mariana Harjevschi

Mariana Harjevschi is a Director of the Public Law Library, branch of the Municipal Library “B.P.Hasdeu” in Chisinau, Moldova. In November 2008, she was elected for four years term as a vice President of Library Association in Moldova.
Since 2008, Mariana Harjevschi acts as eIFL IP copyright librarian within eIFL Direct Moldova Consortia, member of eIFL, dealing with copyright issues for librarians and advocating fair and balanced copyright legislation in Moldova. For the period of 2009-2013 Mariana Harjevschi is a member of the Copyright and Legal Committee of IFLA.
She holds a Bachelor Degree in Library Science and Information Assistance (1999) and a Master’s in Journalism and Communication Sciences (2001), both from Moldova State University. During 2004-2005 Mariana Harjevschi completed the Junior Faculty Development Program at School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University in Bloomington, US.

Harald Müller

Harald Müller is a German librarian, lawyer and the director of the library of the Max Planck Institute for comparative public law and international law in Heidelberg. The library has a collection of approx. 620,000 volumes and is considered to be the largest collection in public international law and European law in Europe. He is a well-known expert of library law and up to 2009 he was the chairmen of the legal commission (Rechtskommission) of the German library association.
At present he is the deputy speaker of the Coalition for Action “Copyright for Education and Research” and a member of the Experts Group on information Law (EGIL) of the European office of library, information and documentation Associations (EBLIDA), the document delivery and resource sharing section of IFLA (International Federation of library associations), the German Alliance of Research Organizations legal experts group, as well as the legal experts group of NESTOR, the German authority network to digital long-term archiving.
Earlier activities included posts in national and international library organizations such as the German Library Institute, the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) and the IFLA Committee for copyright and legally matters. Mueller lectures in library right at the Bavarian library school.
See http://www.mpil.de/ww/de/pub/organisation/wiss_bereich/hmueller.cfm.

Lucie Guibault

Dr. Lucie Guibault is senior researcher at the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). She studied law at the Université de Montréal (Canada) and received in 2002 her doctorate from the University of Amsterdam, where she defended her thesis on Copyright Limitations and Contracts.
She is specialized in international and comparative copyright and intellectual property law. Her interests further include database protection, computer software and Internet issues, as well as contractual matters relating to information. Dr. Guibault is currently doing research on the Licensing framework of Europeana, an EC funded project on the digitization and dissemination of the European cultural heritage.

Maria Martin-Prat

Ms. Martin-Prat is Head of the Copyright Unit in the Commission Internal Market Directorate General. Her Unit is responsible for the development and enforcement of the EU “acquis” in the area of copyright and related rights as well as for international negotiations in bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Before joining the Copyright Unit, Ms Martin-Prat was already a Head of Unit in DG MARKT, responsible for free movement of services and freedom of establishment issues, notably the 2006 Services Directive. Prior experience in the Commission includes being a member of the Cabinet of Commissioner Joaquin Almunia and several posts in DG MARKT.
Ms. Martin-Prat is admitted as a solicitor in Spain and has two postgraduate degrees on European Law. She is fluent in Spanish, English and French.

Luciano Mazza de Andrade

Luciano Mazza de Andrade is a Counsellor at the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations and Head of the Trade and Economic Section of the Brazilian Mission to the European Union, where he has been serving since April 2010. In his career in the diplomatic service he has worked extensively with trade and integration policies, both is his posts abroad and his assignments in Brazil. Before moving to Brussels, he was General Coordinator for WTO Dispute Settlement, in Brasilia. Previously, he served at the Brazilian Embassy in London and at the Permanent Representation of Brazil to the Latin American Integration Association and to Mercosur, in Montevideo.
He has a Masters degree in European Law (LLM) from the LSE and defended a thesis of High Studies on Mercosur’s institutions at the Brazilian Diplomatic Academy.

Kostas Rossoglou

Kostas Rossoglou holds the position of Senior Legal Officer at BEUC and is leading BEUC’s Digital Team. He has been working at BEUC’s Legal Department since January 2009 and his main areas of expertise are Intellectual Property, data protection and e-commerce. He is also working in the field of contract law and consumer redress. Kostas Rossoglou is a Greek qualified lawyer, member of the BAR of the Thessalonica, in Greece.

Martyn Ware

Konrad Boehmer

Konrad is a noted composer of orchestral, dramatic, chamber and electronic music and for 35-years a professor of composition and music history at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague. He has been active in the authors’ rights movement as a member of CIAM, the international body representing composer-members of authors societies worldwide for 40 years as well many years spent as the immediate past President of BUMA/Stemra, the authors’ society of the Netherlands. He brings an understanding of the changing creative process for composers over recent decades of dramatic technological development and an insiders view of how the digital age has affected the management of rights and what can be done to improve access to works for all whilst ensuring creators’ rights are respected.

Marianne Rollet

Marianne Rollet has more than 20 years in corporate communications, event organisation, media and public relations; A carer combining cultural issues and communication skills at the international level, for privately-held companies, international NGOs or in the public sector.
In October 2000, Marianne joined CISAC, an international organisation representing 232 authors’ societies in 121 countries. Since 2005, she is Director of Communications and of the World Copyright Summit. She is responsible for conceiving and implementing the international communications and event strategy of the NGO, targeting authors’ societies, creators of all repertoires, the entertainment sector and media, and the public at large. Her most successful achievement is the World Copyright Summit, a 2-day conference on the future of copyright and the creative industries in the digital era, held in Brussels (2007, 2011) and Washington (2009, 2013), gathering 700+ participants.
Marianne’s past experiences run from Communications Manager for Digital Distribution at FNAC, to Director of Conferences at Reed Midem and Head of the Press Department of the French Minister of Culture.

Robbert Baruch

Robbert Baruch (1967) is Manager Public Affairs at Buma/Stemra, the Dutch Collecting Society for authors rights. He studied Political Philosophy, Public Administration and Theology in Leiden, Amsterdam and Jerusalem. Prior to working at Buma/Stemra, Robbert was the senior lobbyist for the Dutch Insurance Industry and Alderman of the Rotterdam Borough of Feijenoord. Before that, he worked with ING Group as a political consultant.
He is an active member for the Dutch PvdA, where he was a board member, campaign leader and member of the provincial council. He is a board member of the Central Jewish Council of The Netherlands, the International Press Centre Nieuwspoort, and various other boards. He is a guest lecturer on Public Affairs and Political Philosophy at Leiden University and the Utrecht school of Journalism and keeps a web blog (in Dutch) on www.robbertbaruch.nl. And twitters under the alias @rbaruch

Paul Keller

Paul Keller copyright policy advisor and vice-chair of Knowledgeland, an Amsterdam based think-tank focussed on innovation in the knowledge economy.
Paul is an expert on open content and data licensing with a special focus on the cultural heritage organizations, the music industry and the creative industries. He is public project lead for Creative Commons in the Netherlands and serves as Collecting Societies Liaison for Creative Commons International. Paul is also coordinating the copyright related aspects of Images for the Future one of the biggest digitization projects for audio-visual heritage in Europe and he is one of the the architects of the licensing framework for Europeana, the European Union funded online aggregator of Europe’s cultural heritage.
Paul is member of the board of iCommons, an organisation promoting open education, access to knowledge, free software, open access publishing and free culture communities around the world. He also sits on the advisory board of the Virtual Platform, the sector institute of the Dutch eCulture sector and is a board member of the TransArtis a knowledge centre on cultural mobility, with a strong focus on artist-in-residence opportunities.

Kelvin Smits

As an economist and music artist, Kelvin Smits has always been a supporter of a fairer and clearer system of rights remuneration, although his personal experiences have shown him that this is often easier said than done. After 15 years of writing and producing more than 180 songs for different bands, he decided to start the first European digital-only label “The WAB”, which grew rapidly and became the hub for Belgian alternative music and is now an established name with more than 350 bands releasing their music worldwide online. The realization that many of these bands were not being paid the digital mechanical rights from iTunes by SABAM led directly to the foundation of Younison, the European advocacy organisation that gives authors a way to demand stringent transparency and accountability standards vis-a-vis their collecting societies.

Liv Vaisberg

Liv Vaisberg is a legal adviser to the Federation of European Publishers. She is of French and Dutch Nationality and hold a double law degree from King’s College London (LLM) and Paris-1 Université Panthéon Sorbonne (Master) as well as a L.L.M. in European Legal Studies from the College of Europe. Before joining FEP, she worked as a legal adviser at ARTE, the cultural Franco-German channel, and as a consultant specialised in copyright and cultural issues at EU level.

Mario Pena

Mario Pena (born 1972), Chief Business Development Officer at Safe Creative, is a former Computer technician, open culture and speech advocate, and photographer. Has given lectures at the MIT in Boston about online registries, at the Communia Event in Amsterdam together with V.P. of Creative Commons, and is a frecuent lecturer in other important events about copyright issues and digital content related business models, such as the Digital Content Distribution Workshop by Erich Pommer Institute, the Open Video Conference NY, the first Semantic Copyright conference or the Conference of Independent Journalism in the Complutense University of Madrid.
Has been speaker at the 2011 TEDx PlazaCibeles about education and open culture in the classroom. Former P.R. at International Film Festivals, CEO of Zync.es and chief of the research and development dept. at Sync.es. Online media business expert is very interested in the way new ways of licensing and the new challenges the digital paradigm brings to the economies of scarcity and abundance.

Jeremy Malcolm

Jeremy Malcolm is Consumers International’s Senior Policy Officer for Consumers in the Digital Age, coordinating its global programmes on Access to Knowledge (A2K), broadband, and consumer rights and representation in the information society from CI’s Asia-Pacific office in Kuala Lumpur. Jeremy graduated with degrees in Law (with Honours) and Commerce in 1995 from Murdoch University, and completed his PhD thesis at the same University in 2008 which was the first doctoral examination of the Internet Governance Forum.
Jeremy’s background is as an information technology and intellectual property lawyer and IT consultant. He is admitted to the bars of the Supreme Court of Western Australia (1995), High Court of Australia (1996) and Appellate Division of New York (2009). Until his most recent appointment Jeremy was the principal of Western Australia’s first specialist IT law firm, and simultaneously managed an IT consultancy.

David Hammerstein

David Hammerstein is the Senior Advisor on intellectual property for the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue in Brussels. As a Member of the European Parliament from 2004-2009, he specialized on IP, telecomunications and Internet issues. He is now following closely the Treaty to improve access to copyrighted works for people who are blind or have other disabilities at the World Intellectual Property Organization and ACTA, internet related policies and other issues related to global access to medicine.

Joe McNamee

Joe McNamee is Advocacy Coordinator for European Digital Rights (EDRi) – an association of 28 digital civil rights associations from 18 European countries. Prior to starting with EDRi, Joe worked for a political/telecoms consultancy, where he led three research projects for the European Commission (local loop unbundling, convergence and telecoms/information society in Russia and seven other former soviet states.

Elisabeth O. Sjaastad

Elisabeth O. Sjaastad (born in Oslo, Norway 1977) studied directing at the Beijing Film Academy and the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, China (1998-2000). While studying, she directed and co-produced a theatre production of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Good Woman of Setzuan” in Beijing .In 2002 she directed and produced the Amanda-nominated (Norway’s national film award) feature documentary Shiny Stars, Rusty Red (China) which was invited to film festivals worldwide, including Full Frame Documentary Festival, USA, and Pusan International Film Festival, Korea. Through her production company Screen Stories she has also produced films from South Africa (also as director), Peru and the United Arab Emirates.
Elisabeth was Vice President of the Norwegian Film Makers’ Association and a FERA delegate 2005 – 2010. She has served on several juries and boards. In 2006 she was appointed by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture as member of the Einarsson-committee, which produced a report on Norway’s audiovisual policy and made recommendations to restructure the Norwegian Film Institute and redefining the goals and ambitions of Norwegian film.
In her spare time Elisabeth is developing a docudrama TV-serial on James Joyce and Henrik Ibsen, writing a feature film script, and producing a documentary film on Iraq as co-owner of the production company Directors at Work. Elisabeth has been Chief Executive of FERA since 2010.

Burak Özgen

Burak Özgen is Senior Legal Advisor at GESAC (The European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers) where he deals with legal and policy aspects of collective management, content licensing and protection of copyright. Before joining GESAC he was a partner at Eurokent Consultancy in Brussels, and worked with private companies, NGOs and governmental organisations, mostly on copyright related matters. Prior to that, Burak worked at the Audiovisual and Media Policies Unit of the European Commission, EMI Music Publishing and TurquoiseArt Entertainment as legal counsel. He also took part in international projects such as “Fair Music Business Model” and “Music Rights in Southern Africa” as legal advisor and project coordinator respectively.
He holds an LL.M degree in European and International Law from the Ghent University, Belgium, where he is still a PhD researcher and stayed as a visiting fellow at the Columbia Law School for a short term where he gave a seminar course on ‘Current issues in music licensing’.

Barbara Szczepańska

Barbara Szczepańska is the Library and Information Services Manager at Hogan Lovells Warsaw office.
Optionally [Before joining Hogan Lovells in 2001 she worked in academic library, corporate library and European Court of Justice library. She received a master’s degree in Information & Library Science followed by postgraduates studies on social communication and media and copyright law.] She represents the Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries in the eIFL-IP programme as an country coordinator. In this capacity in 2011 she participated in WIPO SCCR meetings advocating for exception and limitations to copyright treaty for libraries.
She is also an active member of the Polish Librarians Association. She is a former member of the IFLA Copyright and Other Legal Matters Committee and the EBLIDA Expert Group of Information Law.

Stuart Hamilton

Dr. Stuart Hamilton is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). He gained his PhD in Library and Information Science from the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen, Denmark where his research examined freedom of access to information on the Internet worldwide, and the ways in which libraries can overcome barriers such as censorship or the digital divide to ensure that library users receive the best possible access to online information resources.

He has lectured extensively around the world on his PhD subject and other intellectual freedom matters, and his findings have been published in print and online journals. In his position as Director of Policy and Advocacy, Dr. Hamilton co-ordinates the activities of IFLA’s FAIFE (Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression) and CLM (Copyright and other Legal Matters) Committees, as well as work relating to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and other IFLA global advocacy activities in the area of access to digital information.