Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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8. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the measures he is considering to ensure full compliance with EU copyright directives and copyright legislation, given the issues raised by representatives of actors, performers, writers, and directors about the use of buyout contracts in the Irish film industry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30469/24]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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For many years, I have been raising the concerns of people in the film industry and this question relates particularly to actors, writers, directors and performers who are forced by film producers in this country to sign buyout contracts, contracts which are far inferior to what actors, performers, writers and directors get in other jurisdictions. These buyout contracts are a breach, in the view of Equity, the performers and, in my view, of the copyright directive. What is the Government doing to progress the concerns of the actors and performers?

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Theachta. As the Deputy will be aware, copyright legislation ensures that all authors and performers, including actors, performers, writers and directors, are protected by provisions of copyright legislation where the authors or performers choose to transfer their rights to another party, for example, to producers in the film and TV industry. The transfer of rights is usually done by way of a licence or contract in which the remuneration due to the authors or performers in exchange for the transfer of his or her intellectual property rights is agreed between the parties concerned. Copyright legislation does not prescribe how such agreements should be made. The contractual matter is a matter for the parties. However, these contractual arrangements must be cognisant of the relevant provisions of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market 2019, transposed into Irish legislation by way of SI 567/2021 - European Union Copyright and Related Rights in the Digital Single Market Regulations 2021.

While Irish copyright legislation does not specifically mention buyout contracts, compliance with Part 6 of SI 567/2021 compels the principle of appropriate and proportionate remuneration to be included in contracts for rights holders and describes how this should be achieved. Regulation 27 provides for a transparency obligation meaning that a rights holder must receive, from the party to whom the rights holder has transferred his or her rights, detailed information on how the work has been exploited. The provision ensures that authors and performers have access to an increased level of information about the exploitation of their works and performances, which is necessary to allow rights holders to assess their economic value adequately and continuously. Having obtained information by way of Regulation 27, Regulation 28 then offers authors and performers a contract adjustment mechanism when the remuneration originally agreed turns out to be disproportionately low. This compares the success of their work or performance to the resulting revenues generated and gives them rights under it.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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More transparency about how much money is generated out of the films is welcome-----

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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It is regulated more.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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-----but the problem, as I have been trying to explain to the Government, as have the representatives of the writers, directors and performers, is the people with the whip hand are the producers. If you want a job, you sign the contract or otherwise, you do not get a job. That is the way it actually works. The contracts being offered to writers, directors, actors and performers are dramatically inferior than what you get in other jurisdictions. The terrible thing here is those film producers are only the producers of the films because the Government gives them money to make the films through the section 481 film tax credit, which is supposed to be for quality employment and training. My committee has recommended that something is done about this, but nothing ever gets done. It is pass the parcel between the Department of enterprise, the Department of Finance, the Department of arts and the Department of Social Protection, all of which should be working together to stop this mistreatment of our talent and the people who work in the film industry in this county.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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To clarify, Regulation 27 is about transparency. Once you have your transparency, Regulation 28 kicks in and that offers authors and performers a contractual adjustment mechanism when the remuneration originally agreed turns out to be disproportionately low compared to the success of their work. That is important to clarify. To be clear, the existing copyright legislation ensures that rights holders have an effective means of enforcing their rights by way of proceedings before the appropriate courts. Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, which are without prejudice to any judicial remedies, are provided for too.

On a separate matter, I am happy to confirm my Department recently received Government approval to draft and publish a short Bill to address a known mischief detected in the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 and I will talk to the House about that at a later point. I acknowledge the work done by the Deputy's committee on this. I can go into further details of the tax credit mentioned by Deputy Boyd Barrett and the budgetary oversight element of it, if he wishes.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I was the one who asked our committee to do that report. I know quite a lot about it, with respect.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Well done.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am pretty familiar with this issue because I have been bringing it up for about four years. The problem is, nothing ever really changes. I am interested to see this legislation and whether it will make any difference. Could the Minister of State please tell us when that legislation is actually coming up? To repeat, there is an easier way to do this and it is for the Government to crack the whip on the film producers because the Government gives the money. It is not specifically the Minister of State's Department, but everybody is working together on this. What the EU Directive says is that buyout contracts should be the exception, not the rule. In Ireland, they are the rule.

That should not be the case. The Government should crack the whip and state that actors, performers, writers and directors should not be forced to sign contracts which give away their right to future revenues if films turn out to be successful. Some 3,500 of them have signed a petition calling for action on this. That petition has been signed by some of the top names, but they are not the ones who need what this. It is the majority of actors and performers who live in relative poverty.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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In relation to the Deputy's specific question around legislation in this area, it will be in the context of the sharing of royalty payments between producers and performers of recorded music. I recently sought and received Government approval to address this matter by amending the primary copyright legislation. Accordingly, drafting will proceed on the relevant Bill shortly.

As the Deputy said, the committee of which he is a member, on the basis of his ask, has done quite an amount of work on this. In January, recommendations were published in relation to section 481 tax credits. The committee's report on this was published earlier in the week. The report's recommendations cut across, as the Deputy acknowledged, a number of different Departments. As a result, cross-departmental co-operation is going to be required.

I understand that the relevant forum met in February. It consisted of a mix of plenary and break-out sessions to discuss the tax-credit issue and copyright issue at length. I expect that learnings from the forum will inform the policy considerations on this going forward.