News

GEMA: Financial performance in 2012

GEMA finished the 2012 business year with a satisfactory result. The sum of the returns for copyright holders from all over the world was €820.2 million. Although this represents a decrease of about 0.6 percent, or €5.3 million, compared to the previous year, income overall has remained at a high level.

The cost unit rate increased slightly to 15.6 percent, compared to 14.9 percent in the previous year. The share of mandates for collection on total income amounted to €175.0 million. Both positive and negative developments could be seen in GEMA’s different sources of income. At a glance, GEMA’s most important sources of collection income

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May 2013: From CRM to the Ivor Novello Awards.

Q&A with Véronique Desbrosses, General Manager of GESAC.

It has been a busy few weeks for GESAC, with the CRM Directive now gathering pace as the summer approaches. What update do you have on this?

At this advanced stage, we really are getting into the detail of this piece of legislation. The four technical committees who were selected for consultation have now drafted their opinions, so we have an overview of the direction they are heading in on this.

Overall, what we are looking for now is a compromise that serves the interests of all stakeholders, while adequately safeguarding the interests of authors and composers. We trust that Marielle Gallo, who is steering this piece of legislation through Parliament, will be able to work through the various amendments that are being made and piece together a text that is both pragmatic and effective.

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Why the EU-US trade agreement must preclude cultural and audiovisual sectors

Today in the European Parliament in Strasbourg the EU-US free trade agreement (TTIP for short) has again been on the table for discussion and we were delighted to see 381 of those present voted in favour of excluding the cultural and creative industries from the potential deal. Some 191 voted against and 17 abstained.

This game-changing potential deal has been the subject of hot debate since talks began back in February, and in many ways it is a huge step forward for Europe and the US.  But it would be simplistic to assume that it would be in everyone’s best interests for the deal to be all encompassing, covering all sectors. For Europe’s creative and audiovisual sectors, the deal offers no benefits and indeed could cause damage, ultimately weakening Europe’s creative and economic economy. That’s why we feel strongly that these sectors should be excluded from the deal. And we are glad that so many of Europe’s democratically elected representatives agree with us.

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Lescure report: a step forward for creators, music fans and Europe’s cultural mix

As some of our readers may know, in 2012 Pierre Lescure was appointed to lead a well-timed consultation on cultural policy in the digital era by the French government. Yesterday, he presented his findings to the French President, Françoise Hollande and the culture minister Aurélie Filippetti. Sacem, our French author society, has welcomed the report with much interest.

Many of SACEM’s suggestions have been taken into account in the report. The society is pleased that the report demonstrates an underlying concern for the protection of artists’ remuneration. It also applauds the report’s positive attitude towards the cultural industry and its acknowledgment of the close affinity between music and digital sectors.

The report – some key highlights:

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