The former PiS government has a problem. It’s all Netflix’s fault
The Polish Filmmakers Association informed about submitting a report to the prosecutor’s office on suspicion of a crime. According to them, the work of filmmakers is not adequately compensated by streaming platforms.
Already two weeks ago profile Association of Audiovisual Authors and Producers (ZAPA) he gave some interesting statistics. According to their data, Polish productions were watched only in the first half of 2023 for 544 million hours on the Netflix platform itself. They note that despite the popularity of Polish works, their creators were not properly rewarded. It is possible that the prosecutor’s office will now take up the case.
Polish filmmakers have had enough. They filed a report with the prosecutor’s office
The Polish Filmmakers Association also got involved in the case and announced yesterday that they had filed a report on suspicion of committing a crime involving on the failure to adopt the EU directive introducing Internet royalties. In a post on Facebook, they remind us that the European Union has long adopted a directive ensuring adequate and proportionate remuneration for creators from streaming services.
The deadline for implementing the mentioned initiative has long passed, on June 7, 2021. Moreover, Poland is the only one member of the European Union, which has not yet implemented this directive, which results in huge financial losses for filmmakers. As he notes profile Association of Polish Filmmakers, Poland may face penalties for failing to comply with the EU regulation. At this point, they already reach EUR 13 million and are constantly growing.
The notification to the prosecutor’s office includes a request to investigate the course of the meeting at that time Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki with the head of Netflix. SFP suspects that it was after this meeting that the implementation of the EU directive was abandoned. The project to implement EU law was created in June 2022, prepared by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, prof. Piotr Gliński.
As SFP further reports, on December 5, 2022, the previously mentioned meeting between Morawiecki and the head of Netflix took place, and three days later the Prime Minister asked to abandon the draft regulation.
