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Free All Words#FreeAllWords: International Text and Translation Fund of the European Writers‘ Council (EWC) gives a voice to authors from Belarus and Ukraine

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Content4Education: Statements by EWC Members and EWC President

11th August 2020

EWC joined the Content4Education Campaign, to support writers and translators during the period of a fair implementing of the DSM Directive. The EU Copyright in the Digital Single Market (“DSM”) Directive 2019/790, adopted in April 2019, includes a mandatory exception to copyright under Article 5 for the “digital use of works and other subject matter for the sole purpose of illustration for teaching”. EU Member States have until 7 June 2021 to transpose the Directive into national law, with some flexibility in how they do so.

What EWC Members say:

Nina George, Author, EWC President – Germany

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Photocredit: Nina George © Julia Baier

 Pandemic conspiracy theories in the social networks, extreme political tendencies, fake news factories and government leaders who ignore science and thereby plunge their nations into chaos and misery: we live in a disturbing present in which facts, knowledge, education and well-founded findings have become the most important counterbalance to destructive developments and phenomena of world society. Profound and independently elaborated facts are the backbone of humane civil society.

It is all the more essential to cultivate, promote and protect the sources of these values of knowledge, education, science and teaching: the authors. It is not only climate change that has taught us that sustainability is of paramount importance. This also applies to all dealings with authors’ rights and with copyrighted works and their origins: Nationally stable legal frameworks with a simultaneous forward-looking budget for school and teaching materials and for the authors are a logically imperative investment. It is the vaccination we need to make humane, wise and free decisions.

Article 5(4) of the DSM Directive expressly allows for example the German legislator to provide for remuneration. It is therefore imperative to retain the existing remuneration claim – which is subject to the obligation to pay a Collective Management Organisation – under Articles 60a, 60h (4) UrhG.

This is the only way to preserve substantial knowledge, which is needed more than ever to maintain social immunity against populism and antipluralism.

I refer further to the statement of VG Wort: https://www.vgwort.de/fileadmin/pdf/stellungnahmen/Stellungnahme_Umsetzung_EU-Richtlinien.pdf

 

Morten Rosenmeier, Professor of copyright law and chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Scientific and Scholarly Work (UBVA) – Denmark

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It takes thousands of hours to write a copyright textbook. If the law students are to learn anything it simply has to be of high quality. Much of it is written in my spare time, including weekends and holidays. Copyright and licensing provides an important economic incentive for me, as well as for the publisher who publishes the book. It is not acceptable that EU Member States’ implementation of the new EU copyright law could leave authors in a position where their work is used/copied for free. Why would I spend all that time and effort writing a textbook if everybody can just copy it for free? If I have no remuneration when my textbook is copied, it will no doubt lessen my incentive to spend thousands of hours writing it. If works can be used without limits and remuneration it will no doubt mean that we will get fewer textbooks and the ones we will get will be of a lower quality than the ones we have now.

 

 

Carlos Fortea, Author, translator and teacher at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid – Spain

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My life revolves around the book, because I am a novellist, because I am a translator, because I am a university professor. This triple condition has made me aware, since a long time ago, both of the fundamental importance of copyright and the need to guarantee the right to information.

For many authors, copyright is not only a form of property, but a source of livelihood: living to write entails living from writing, and that implies that it is necessary to respect creation and remunerate it. This applies to the direct creation by authors, indirect creation by translators, and the scientific creation by professors.

We are dealing with a task with high added value: it requires many years of formation, much trial and error, much effort, constant updating. From it live many other members of the value chain of the book. Even then, we understand it is necessary to enable students and readers to access part of our work, but this must be done with fair conditions. And fair conditions mean licences, rules, the agreed remuneration that allows us to carry on with our work. To respect creation is to respect culture.

​

 

If you are interested to learn more visit the official website: www.contentforeducation.org or download the Content4Education brochure and the FAQ:

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Content4Education: How EU Member States can ensure the delivery of sustainable, high-quality content for education

AUTHORS’ RIGHTS

Convocation of the EWC-FAEE AISBL Annual General Meeting 2023

February 3, 2023

We are hiring: the EWC is looking for a part-time Administration Officer

January 20, 2023

EWC project #Freeallwords translated text by Nobel Price for Peace Laureate

December 9, 2022

European Day of Languages | #FreeAllWords project

November 26, 2022

Support for Writers from Ukraine and Belarus: The project #FreeAllWords

September 22, 2022

Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Copyright Ecosystem

September 3, 2022
Retweet on Twitter European Writers' Council Retweeted
eyshans Eystein Hanssen 🏴‍☠️ @eyshans ·
2 Feb

@FreeAllWords publiserer oversatte tekster fra ukrainske og belarusiske forfattere. Prosjektet er i regi av @CouncilWriters, med bidrag fra bla. @FrittOrd, @Kopinor og @Forfatterforb. Sjekk ut ...hjemmesiden her: https://freeallwords.org

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cultcreatorseu Cultural Creators Friendship Group 🇪🇺 @cultcreatorseu ·
1 Feb

In 2022, our #CCFG (co-)hosted or officially supported 7 public events, including with these partners: @le_CNM @MinistereCC @regiongrandest @saabrussels @SportsGroup2024 @Liveurope @ABconcerts ...@Creators_ECSA @Film_directors @CouncilWriters @ScreenwritersEU @EVisual_Artists.

Retweet on Twitter European Writers' Council Retweeted
agstrait Andrew Strait agstrait@someone.elses.computer @agstrait ·
20 Jan

There are also the impacts these systems are having on small rights holders, whose data is often used without their consent, attribution, or compensation. Hence the lawsuits against Midjourney by ...artists, and against OpenAI/Microsoft/Github by coders

https://twitter.com/neilturkewitz/status/1614316534750654465

neil turkewitz @neilturkewitz

NEWS ALERT…

Class action lawsuit filed against Midjourney, StabilityAI (StableDiffusion) & DeviantArt for the unauthorized use of copyright protected works to train their AI systems.

...https://stablediffusionlitigation.com/pdf/00201/1-1-stable-diffusion-complaint.pdf

Retweet on Twitter European Writers' Council Retweeted
andrewyang Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 @andrewyang ·
21 Jan

What impact will ChatGPT have on colleges, the workforce and democracy? Monday on http://andrewyang.com/podcast writer for the Atlantic and author of “The Next Civil War: Dispatches from ...America’s Future” @StephenMarche joins to talk where AI is taking us - whether we like it or not.

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pubperspectives PubPerspectives @pubperspectives ·
8 Jan

From the week: Surveying the Profession(s): How Much Do UK Writers Earn? | @Porter_Anderson https://bit.ly/3WDDnT8 @ALCS_UK @Soc_of_Authors @copyrightcentre @UofGlasgow | A new British survey of ...authors warns of falling incomes and faltering sustainability in writing occupations

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iniurheberrecht Initiative Urheberrecht @iniurheberrecht ·
8 Jan

#KI #Hörbuch Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks | Apple | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/04/apple-artificial-intelligence-ai-audiobooks

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