Diskurs

The event,  Sustaining AV Creators in a Shifting Market: The Economic Power of Authors’ Rights, examined the current challenges of the audiovisual market and the importance of a sustainable royalty income for creators.

Across two panels featuring global audiovisual authors and collective management leaders, the conversations recognised that while the audiovisual sector is expanding globally, the economic position of screenwriters and directors is increasingly fragile. The panellists explored how to ensure that the global success of audiovisual works translates into fair income, transparency and lasting creative independence for those who make them.

Watch the recording of the event.

When the chain of return breaks

CISAC Vice President, film director and screenwriter Ángeles González-Sinde set the tone by placing today’s challenges within a broader historical frame. Authors’ rights, she recalled, were born alongside human rights, grounded in the principle that a work belongs to its creator.

In the streaming age, that principle is under strain. Films now travel across borders and platforms with unprecedented speed and reach. Platforms can measure every view in real time. But many creators still have little visibility over how their works are exploited or what revenues they generate beyond an initial fee.

The result is a growing disconnect between global circulation and authors’ remuneration. When sustained income is absent, only those with financial privilege can afford to remain in the profession. Risk-taking narrows. Diversity declines. “Without authors’ rights,” she warned, “culture becomes privilege, not democracy.”  What should be a golden age for creators increasingly feels like a broken chain of return.

Artificial intelligence adds a new layer of urgency. As AI systems are trained on creative works and generate competing outputs, questions of transparency, consent and remuneration become central. Regulating AI, she stressed, “is not censorship. It is democratic hygiene.” Transparency obligations, licensing frameworks and fair payment “are not obstacles to innovation, but safeguards to ensure that technological progress does not override the social contract that sustains democratic culture”.

For González-Sinde, this also requires a shift in governance. Creators are still largely absent from regulatory discussions that directly shape their professional future. Any effective framework must not only guarantee transparency and fair remuneration, but also ensure that authors have a meaningful role in shaping the rules that govern the use of their work.

Read the full speech here.