Bulgaria: Musicautor, Filmautor & Artistautor to form alliance supporting creative industry

Sofia, Bulgaria: Musicautor, Filmautor and Artistautor organisations have joined hands to establish an alliance called – “Alliance for the Development of Creative Forces“. The motive of this alliance will be to provide support to the responsible institutions and contribute to the economic development of Bulgaria. 

The alliance will also assure transparency, fairness and better conditions for the creators. This partnership comes after the creative sector witnessed damages over the previous several years. 

Viktor Bozhinov, the chairman of the board of Filmautor, asserted, “This is a key point in the tolerance of piracy”. While highlighting the aim of the alliance, he added, “This partnership or we can say the alliance is not seeking any funding or financial aid, but rather an execution of well-focused as well as purpose-oriented state policy which will reflect the rights & interests of all parties in this procedure”. 

“We are creating music, movies despite the imbalances in relations between all participants in the creative environment”, in relation to the above statement, the chairman underscored.  

Meanwhile, Maria Palaurova, MD of Filmautor, Bulgaria, noted that “Royalties for the authors in the audio-visual sector during 2020, represent 0.0010% of Bulgaria’s GDP, which implies that the country spends – €0.09 per capita for the whole year.”

Highlighting the statics in the music industry, Palaurova added that around 0.007% is gathered as a percentage of GDP in Bulgaria, and as an absolute amount, it was 0.65 euros per capita in 2020. 

Gallup International on authors of films and series conducted a survey, of which the data states that in the time period of last five years, only about 12% of writers obtained subsequent remuneration (not including the lump sum received with the signing of the production contract).  

Around 89% of the writers, who are having their films on the internet, have not received remuneration.