No Formality, No Opt-Out: FSE Defends the Berne Convention at WIPO
FSE delivered a statement this Thursday, April 10, at the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO, during the information session on generative artificial intelligence held under Agenda Item 7 of SCCR/46, at the request of the Member States.
Here is the full text of our oral intervention, delivered by our General Delegate, Denis Goulette.
“I represent the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe. I am also a lawyer, deeply committed to the rule of law.
In 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union, in its Soulier and Doke judgment, confirmed that under Article 5 of the Berne Convention, the exercise of exclusive rights by authors cannot be made subject to any formality. This ruling explicitly prohibits any form of “opt-out” by Member States of the Convention.
Leading international scholars — notably Professor Jane Ginsburg — have upheld this interpretation consistently since 2016, including recently within the framework of L’Association Française pour la Protection Internationale du Droit d’Auteur (AFPIDA).
Nevertheless, the European Union has implemented an opt-out regime that forces screenwriters to act, work by work, to protect their rights — an impossible burden to carry.
Moreover, no impact assessment was conducted to verify the compatibility of this exception with the three-step test enshrined in Article 9 of the Berne Convention.
We wish to express our deep concern that such fundamentally divergent systems — opt-in and opt-out — are now coexisting at international level. This creates legal uncertainty for all, including AI providers, but especially harms authors, who are already losing a significant part of their writing income.”
FSE observer member at WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR)
The Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) has recently been officially admitted as an observer member of the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).
Alongside the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG), already an observer, this means the global screenwriters’ community will now be watching closely how WIPO Member States — nearly all signatories to the Berne Convention — intend to protect authors in the age of generative AI, and ensure fair remuneration in the audiovisual sector.
For screenwriters, the urgency is real. The current cacophony between opt-in and opt-out national approaches raises a fundamental question: how can legal uncertainty and fragmented standards possibly provide the harmonisation and legal security authors need to thrive in a common global market ?