On 2010-3-26 at 17:32 zellikaktief said:

Dear Younison,

I thank you for picking this up and would also like to reply as an organiser of voluntarily social and cultural events. As we have been victim for many years of these burocratic and politically protected practices and it is already for years that they try to get money from all the organisers. I fully agree that the goal and idea of collecting the royalties for the artists is an established organism as we benefit of these artists and authors to turn our activities in to a success.

However we, I can speak for many other small organisations who have limited resources and budgets. We have to invest every hard earned Euro back into the organisation to ensure we sustain our socio-cultural way of living. At least that is our goal.

We organise small events on a non profit and voluntarily bases in our local village and in hindsight we get some subsidised money from our government. However this year we had to give the entire amount to Sabam and ‘Billijke Vergoeding’ which is another kind of dully organisation who collects royalties for the artists, as where Sabam stands in for the Authors. Again we never see if this money is properly conveyed to the people who should get it! But they chase us as being a commercial organisation with backed up with loyers as if they are manking the financial resources.

This year the royalty affair almost bankrupted our organisation as we now have to organise crisis diner events to find the money to pay them.

Finally a lot of organisations already gave up because of these authorities and at last I personally find it discusting when I read things like that in the paper!!!

Thanks for your attention,

Bertrand Vandenplas
www.zellikaktief.be