Defending creators, creation and cultural diversity

What are our priority goals?

To ensure maximum protection of authors’ rights: Never before have authors’ rights come under so much attack, and the battle for the right to fair remuneration is ongoing. We fight for authors on all fronts: the digital front, where the temptation of a totally free system dominates; the audiovisual front, where income and accounting reports are unclear; and the performing arts front, which is currently undergoing significant changes.

To develop an ambitious policy supporting creation: Those who profit from an author’s work should contribute to funding it. This principle, which has proven its efficiency, is being destroyed by the distortion of competition between traditional bodies and digital platforms. Yet it is essential to cultural diversity, as is the public system for funding creation. The SACD campaigns so that authors can benefit from public policy that supports the funding of creation.

To reinforce the broadcasting and exhibition of works: To be seen, works have to be broadcast or used. In performing arts, contemporary French-speaking creation must find its rightful place in programs. In the cinema and audiovisual sectors, significant efforts must be made to better exhibit works and leverage the possibilities offered by new digital services and tools.

To support an open cultural policy: Supporting arts education and promoting universal access to culture is one of the keys to cultural democratization. Fighting inequality and discrimination are democratic stakes to which the SACD is publically committed: by helping, for example, women and minorities to find their deserved place in the cultural world.

To promote an employment status which protects authors: Being an author is a non-linear occupation, alternating periods of success and quieter spells, interspersing intervals of writing with periods of promotion: hence the need for a specific status that recognizes the social rights that acknowledges these particularities. The SACD campaigns so that authors can benefit from an increasingly stable and favorable framework on retirement, training, taxes, etc.

How do we intervene?

Acting efficiently to defend authors requires, above all, being an indispensable and credible stakeholder in the eyes of public authorities, government department branches, public institutions, regulatory bodies and professionals from the cultural world. With 58,000 members, the SACD can count on the weight of numbers, but also on the diversity of the authors it represents, which include filmmakers, screenwriters, directors, play writers, choreographers, circus performers, street artists and others.

A precise knowledge of the political, legal and economic environment in which authors work is an essential prerequisite to assessing the opportunities or impacts of particular developments. We are constantly on the alert to defend authors’ rights, to make their views heard or even to encourage them to speak up directly.

From organizing debates and meetings to publishing informative literature, the SACD takes any actions necessary to understand and defend the world of creation.

International and European actions

The SACD is also very active in Europe, where certain decisions can be disconnected from the specificities of authors’ rights and the reality, and where the most powerful lobbies can push against authors’ interests.

The Society intervenes directly with decision-makers at the European Commission and with members of the European Parliament. As part of the development of European directives, we pursue the same goals as in France: defending authors’ rights, promoting the regulation of digital stakeholders in favor of creation, and guaranteeing the upholding of a policy that supports cultural diversity.

The Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA): Along with other European collective management rights societies, the SACD co-founded the Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) in 2010. Currently bringing together 29 societies from 22 European countries, this organization defends the interests of screenwriters and directors before European authorities, and in particular, the development of an audiovisual and cinematographic policy in favor of the creation and establishment of an inalienable right to remuneration for all European authors.

The French Coalition for Cultural Diversity: Since its creation in 2004, the SACD has also led the French Coalition for Cultural Diversity, gathering 52 professional organizations from the cultural sector and presided over by Pascal Rogard. This coalition expanded in Europe, giving birth in 2015 to the European Coalitions for Cultural Diversity, very active in the defense of cultural diversity and authors’ rights in Europe.