WRITTEN QUESTION E-1615/00

by Cristiana Muscardini (UEN) to the Commission

(29 May 2000)

Subject: Harmonisation of the rights of literary translators

The Italian National Writers' Union, which is a member of the European Writers' Congress (EWC), has complained about the plight of literary translators who are forced to sign contracts ceding all their rights for twenty years to publishers in exchange for a flat-rate fee per page, equal to about half of the usual going rate in Europe. In Italy translators derive no financial benefits from any of the uses made of their translations, contrary to the Council of Europe recommendation of December 1993, which stipulates that payment must take account of the subsequent commercial career of the translated work, something for which provision is already made in Italy's 1941 copyright law. Publishers are still systematically exploiting the loopholes in the law in order to turn translation contracts (i.e. the author's contract provided for in Article 4 of the abovementioned law) into service contracts, to the detriment of the weaker party. In Europe this unjust practice has now been consigned to the past. The last country to come into line with current European practice was Spain in 1989. In Italy, however, it is still prevalent, putting literary translators at an unfair advantage.

In the light of these considerations:

1. What are the Commission's views on this matter?

2. Does it not consider that the practice followed by Italy is inconsistent with the principles contained in the directive on copyright in the information society?

3. What will it do to bring Italy into line with the rest of Europe, ending this anomaly and seeing that justice is done for Italian literary translators?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(5 July 2000)

The Commission thanks the Honourable Member for the information given on the payment of literary translators in Italy.

First of all, the Commission would like to point out that literary translators are considered to be authors, under the terms of the Berne International Convention and Community directives, and may therefore exercise the rights and obligations attached to this category of rightholders.

Secondly, Community legislation in the field of copyright and related rights does not yet harmonise the contractual rules applicable in the Member States or the payment conditions which apply to rightholders. The Member States are therefore free to prescribe whichever rules they choose.

The Community legislation can, however, give certain guidelines as to the arrangements to be followed. Thus, Article 4 of Council Directive 92/100/EEC of 19 November 1992 on rental right and lending right and on certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property(1) lays down that an equitable remuneration should be paid to authors for the rental or lending of their work. In harmonising such remuneration, the Community legislation does not stipulate how it should be shared out, but it is clear from this Directive that even in cases where the author is to receive a flat-rate payment, this payment should take the commercial exploitation of the work into account and, if necessary, be increased if the work meets with commercial success.

Finally, with regard to the proposal for a Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society(2), this does not aim to harmonise the contractual rules contained in the Member States' legislation.

The Commission would ask the Honourable Member to send it further information on this matter, so that it can assess whether the situation which currently exists in Italy could be such that it might prevent the internal market from operating properly and result in distortions of competition in the treatment of authors at Community level.

(1) OJ L 346, 27.11.1992.

(2) OJ C 108, 7.4.1998.