Creative sectors as part of the data economy

The data economy is one of the strategic focus areas during the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The High-Level Conference on Data Economy, which saw more than 300 participants come together at Finlandia Hall, just finished today with the introduction of data principles for the growth of the European data economy. The creative sectors were also invited to discuss the topic “New revenue streams from the platform and data economy”, which focuses on developing the copyright infrastructure, that is the metadata level related to copyrighted works and authors.

The data principles drafted for the Conference, which was jointly organised by the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education and Culture, are aimed at defining and promoting a human-centric, successful and balanced European data economy.

The Finnish Presidency wanted to raise awareness of the importance of identifying works and rights holders in the digital environment in order to ensure accurate revenue streams and to recognise the moral rights of authors. In particular, representatives of the games and music sectors and experts on metadata highlighted, together with the Commission, the importance of data for the growth and competitiveness of the EU digital single market.

Developing the copyright infrastructure is important for the European creative sectors for unleashing their full potential on the digital market. Investing in it will  translate into a more efficient, inclusive and trustworthy licensing market, which in turn will create a win-win-win situation for all by increasing access to more works by the public, by making licensing more efficient for businesses and by optimising revenue streams for authors while recognising their moral rights.

The phase following the EU Parliament elections in the spring provided an opportunity for new initiatives, because the EU institutions had not yet started their regular session and because no regular normative work takes place within the field of copyright.

“We believe this is the right time to begin discussing the importance of data and issues related to data on works and authors on the EU level. The European Union needs a clear vision of how we can guide this development to the benefit of the creative sectors and science,” says Hanna Kosonen, Minister of Science and Culture.

More information:

Anna Vuopala, Senior Government Adviser, Ministry of Education and Culture, tel. +358 295 330 331

Viveca Still, Senior Adviser for Copyright, Ministry of Education and Culture, tel. +358 295 330 297