Echoes of the New Copyright Directive approved by the European Parliament last month extend to the other side of the pond. That is why, taking advantage of the popularity achieved by the new community copyright reforms for Internet platforms, the Argentine Society of Management of Performing Actors of Argentina (Sagai) announced the launch of a new campaign to demand from them, specifically YouTube, the enforcement of the National Intellectual Property Law.

In this regard, it is important to remark that the aforementioned entity filed a lawsuit with YouTube (whose parent company is Google) 4 years ago for the lack of payment to actors when that platform uploads national series and films (only claim in the world made by a entity of this type). The form of collection to which Sagai aspires is a percentage, regulated by the Argentine Government through the Intellectual Property Law. That is why, according to their representatives, they are very close to the initiative approved in the European Parliament.

As mentioned in another post of this blog1, the new European directive imposes the use of filters to stop the load of content that may have copyright (as opposed to how it works now, where the analysis is done after it was online and before someone's complaint). These new measures have generated voices in favor (to prevent large platforms from profiting from the effort of others), as against (which they see as a form of censorship).

In this sense, for Sagai, YouTube has some control of the contents that are uploaded to its platform by users because, according to the lawyer Sebastian Bloj, director of Sgai, "it is unfair that the company says that it has no responsability for those contents when we believe that is not true. If we want to see ¨Lost¨ or any ¨Disney movie¨ or any ¨American film¨ we will not find it on the Net¨. On the other hand, Google issued a statement in which it states that "YouTube respects copyright and makes great efforts to combat piracy worldwide and Argentina is no exception.".

In conclusion, this local proposal does not seek the sanction of a new copyright law, as happened in Europe, if not the State to enforce the one currently in force in Argentina. As Jorge Marrale, head of the aforementioned entity, points out "there is an idea that the Internet is for everyone, and it is very good, it is free, but not free."

Source: www.iprofesional.com

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1 ¨European Union Approves Copyright Directive¨, by Maria Sol Porro, 23 APRIL, 2019, (https://www.moellerip.com/european-union-approves-copyright-directive/)

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