Unaccountable hosting services
For a long time, platforms hid behind the loophole of being unaccountable hosting services. Despite their significant market share and the huge amounts of money generated – from advertising and other means – by providing access to creative works, platforms were failing to share this profit fairly, if at all, with the creators.
The result was that big platforms grew, and in the process became household names, but at the expense of creators, who found themselves struggling to live off of their work. The Transfer of Value also threatened the sustainability of the whole creative sector by distorting the market for legitimate online businesses. Businesses that cleared rights from creators, paid their taxes and employed people in Europe were at a disadvantage up against the free-riding platform services who captured the larger share of online traffic and revenues while hiding behind the ambiguity of the rules to avoid remuneration of creators and rightholders.