The government has invited Mark Zuckerberg to the House of Representatives. The Undersecretary of State for Culture Lucia Borgonzoni invited the CEO of Meta, a US company that controls Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, to the Chamber Culture Commission chaired by Federico Mollicone of Fratelli d’Italia at 11.30 this morning. Obviously the founder of Meta will not go in his place, Angelo Mazzetti, head of Italy public policy for the Californian company, will make an appearance. The meeting could be preparations for the “table of three” to be organized at Roman College on April 6, when Meta, Siae and the Ministry of Culture will discuss the difficulties hampering copyright negotiations. Speaking in this context, Undersecretary of State Lucia Borgonzoni stated: “Protecting the rights of our artists, their works and Italian creativity is a priority.” Negotiations between Meta and Siae, the Italian association of authors and publishers, on the use of music in social Media was abruptly interrupted. According to Siae and the government for a “Far West” behavior of Meta, as defined by the Minister of Culture Sangiuliano. “It is a very relevant paradigmatic event – continued the minister – of a relationship between our cultural content and the often arrogant and evasive attitude of large transactional firms”.
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On the part of Siae, the accusation reads: «You are asked to accept a unilateral proposal from Meta, despite a transparent and joint assessment of the real value of the repertoire. This position, together with Meta’s refusal to share relevant information for the purpose of a fair settlement, is clearly at odds with the principles enshrined in the Copyright Directive, which authors and publishers from across Europe have been vigorously campaigning for. For Zuckerberg’s company, the problem would be the “expensive” request from Siae, which would have asked for nearly three times the amount at which the previous two-year contract had been struck. The agreement has now expired on December 15, 2022 as the social platforms using the music tracked by Siae would have indeed exceptionally continued to do so since then; also strengthened by an oral agreement with the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers. As long as the negotiations were ongoing, the use of music could have continued. According to some sources, the verbal agreement did not satisfy Meta, who, to protect itself, decided to pay the copyright payments to a notary. To then decide to suspend the use of music.
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Regarding Meta’s “refusal to share relevant information for the purpose of fair dealing,” ie, not wanting to disclose the numbers recording the songs on social media, the California-based company stated that music is not Meta’s business; also because, unlike YouTube and Spotify, they don’t broadcast whole songs but only fragments. Meanwhile, Meta has struck an agreement with Mediaset in which Zuckerberg’s company will provide Rti, Italian TV broadcasters, with training and support on how to use Rights Manager, the content management system that allows rights holders to authorize their products manage and protect online, in video, audio and image format. Agreement also concluded with Soundreef, the international publishing company also active in Italy. A collaboration that has allowed some songs to return to the platforms. With today’s meeting, the government will probably try to sound the ground to be able to combine two needs: protect copyrights and ensure that Italian music can be enjoyed on Meta’s social platforms.
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