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Audiovisual Composers’ Contracts - Current Practices, Challenges and Recommendations

Composers' contracts constitute the first link between their art and creativity and the exploitation of their works, setting out the rights and responsibilities of the composers and their contractual counterparts. In the audiovisual industry, the secrecy surrounding contractual practices as well as the absence of comprehensive legal or contractual guidance places these creators in vulnerable positions, especially when negotiating with large production companies or platforms with substantial bargaining power.

In recent years, this problem has been compounded by the increasingly high level of concentration of the European audiovisual market, and the rising market share of non-European Video-onDemand (VoD) platforms. As a result, composers often find themselves negotiating in the dark with large entities who pressure them to give up their royalties or a significant part of them in exchange for a single (and often meagre) lump-sum payment, reducing their remuneration and the sustainability of their professions. If they refuse such contracts or wish to challenge their terms, they face the risk of being blacklisted and excluded from future work opportunities. In the EU, the legislator has recognised and sought to correct the power imbalance between authors and their contractual counterparts with the 2019 Copyright Directive, which established, among other things, a principle of appropriate and proportionate remuneration (Article 18). However, this principle is too often circumvented in contracts by audiovisual composers’ contractual counterparts. Within this context, this report looks at the two most harmful practices identified by ECSA which currently prevent composers from getting an appropriate and proportionate remuneration: buyout contracts and pseudo-publishing (also known as "coercive publishing").