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Are collecting societies the new Banks: Exorbitant wages and benefits for CEO’s?

Posted by Kelvin on Jan 28, 2011 at 09:07

Recent stories in the EU press:

- The CEO of SACEM (France) earns more than €600.000 (double of President Sarkozy) with benefits such as a private car with driver (because he earned that much in his previous position at the UN)

- The CEO of SGAE (Spain) has a salary of €323.773 (four times more than Prime Minister Zapatero) and lives in a luxury villa of 4000 m2 (anyone for indoor golf?). When he retires in June 2011, he will receive a pension of €25.000 per month approx.

- The CEO of Dutch collecting society got a golden handshake of €500.000 despite being involved in the loss of €50 million of Dutch authors’ money.

Europe has more than 250.000 professional music authors, represented by their collecting societies who collect about €7.500.000.000 annually in their name... If we look at their annual reports, we see however that the redistribution is somewhat unbalanced and opaque.

On average, 98% of authors receive less than €1000, while only a handful earns [b]more than €300.000.

In practice, we believe the average income received from collecting societies to be between €150 and €250 per year and that the handful of top earners are mainly American major publishers, being paid hundreds of millions of euros per year of OUR money by OUR collecting societies!

Also...

Most collecting societies have an “old regime” way of interpreting democracy: Access to voting and management of the society is based on your collecting society income, which means that the more you earn, the more voting power you have.

Beneath a certain amount, you don’t get to vote. And guess what, the amount that entitles you to a vote far exceeds the average income of €1000…

With the EU law on collective rights management being drafted and expected in 2011, next year presents a unique opportunity for us EU “middle class” artists to join forces and show the European Commission that we are demanding a fair and transparent way of distributing our money, best achieved by using technology already available that can monitor actual usage and which is not being applied by our collecting societies.

It’s by raising pressure and awareness that we can influence how we are paid, and will force collecting societies to modernise and give us a better system and service.

So what does all this teach us?

1. The average European artists is being used as a shield to maintain the illusion that collecting societies represent them and do an indispensible job by “creating income” when actually they are mainly serving the big publishers and labels, not individual artists.

2. Individual artists are not being given a say let alone a vote on how their rights are managed. The boards of collecting societies are packed with representatives of major companies and “old star “puppets on a string.

3. Unless we unite and speak with one voice to EU politicians, collecting societies will continue to get away with the mismanagement of our revenue, while slowly draining the creative European force by handing our money over to the big US companies

....and

4. If you’d like to buy your girlfriend a nice Christmas present, you should probably hang up the guitar and apply for a job at SACEM!

;-)

Merry Christmas everyone and a prosperous 2011.

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Links for documents on statements above:

http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-du-point/emmanuel-berretta/les-hauts-salaires-de-la-sacem-choquent-les-deputes-25-11-2010-1267044_52.php

http://www.libertaddigital.com/internet/teddy-bautista-posee-una-mansion-de-4000-metros-cuadrados-1276405220/

» Read on



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