SPA Board member Paula Cunha participated as an invited trainer for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), United Nations agency, at the training seminar on the management of copyright and related rights in the audiovisual sector for collecting societies of French expression, which took place on 9 and 10 January in El Jadida (Morocco).
This seminar brought together, under the aegis of WIPO, the presidents, directors and staff of the copyright societies of Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Burkina Faso, which for two days discussed among themselves and with the invited experts the main difficulties and opportunities that arise to this creative sector in Africa, in particular as regards the processing of information, online, broadcasting rights, private copying or multi-territorial rights management
online.
Ms Paula Cunha, who presented a communication in French on the importance of information on the works, documentation and, in general, the main aspects of the audiovisual sector, took the opportunity to point out that the only way to fully safeguard the interests of creators of this sector is consecration of the obligation of collective management in the legislation. In Portugal this does not yet exist and has been insistence of the SPA on national governmental bodies.
The works were also accompanied by Moroccan journalists, authors and artists who participated actively in the debates.
There was also widespread interest in the Lusophone project that SPA has been developing and a request by some of the participants to study the possibility that copyright societies outside the Lusophone area could also benefit from the monitoring and support of the cooperative of the Portuguese authors.
At the closing session, the director general of the BMDA (Moroccan copyright company), Ismail Menkari, commended the close cooperation between BMDA and SPA and conveyed the support of the Moroccan Ministry of Culture to the work that has been done developed and expected to continue.
Lisbon, January 19, 2018
