Chances are that you’ve never heard of this special tax first implemented on all digital hardware (Mobile phones, MP3 players, harddisks, copiers...) as well as blank CD copies as from 2001.
The idea of this tax seems quite simple and noble being that with every (legal) copy made of a musical track, the artist loses income and so he/she should be compensated for that loss.
The directive issued at the time by the European Commission was that untill a more precise way of compensation was available, the collecting societies would be able to collect this tax and redistribute it fairly between their members, the artists.
Recent research by the commission revealed that in the years 2001-2006, European collecting societies have collected a staggering 4 billion Euro, growing rapidly every year as more and more people have these machines (estimates show revenue to have risen to 9 billion Euro!!! by now ).
Younison wishes to form a broad coalition of keyplayers in the industry to stand up and demand that this money will be redistributed fairly and that a new and transparent technological system is constructed to avoid general collection and make all moneyflows personalised.
For this we ask you to fill in this new poll (2 minutes) so we can push forth the new directive in the European Commission, and secure a future where the creative work gets fairly compensated !
Do you think a personalized, technological system of remuneration is preferable to the current generic collection?
13 replies added
On 2008-4-10 at 13:56 aCKJazz said:
I think it's really hard to create a good working system for all artists and it won't be easy to give everyone what he/she deserves in these times but the worst thing about it all is the corruption. It only makes it even more complicated then it already is. Things have to change!!!
On 2008-4-17 at 18:44 Tomman said:
Pure rip off!
i never realised any of this !
it's hard fr me to even believe this is actually true, but iv'e checked it out via wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy and it seems to really be true.
Thanks for bringing this under our attention, i'm going to spread the word now for sure
On 2008-4-17 at 21:01 buscemi123 said:
I read in the article in the knack magazine that there is actually a problem between the collecting societies such as Sabam and Sacem, and that they are not redistributing even the digital mechanical rights let alone the levies!
this means that all the sales that are generated by itunes never get payed to us!
it's a disgrace !
i'm fore the transparent technological system all the way!
On 2008-4-17 at 22:42 wedothebump said:
This is quite an amazing story...
9 billion euro,
thats about as much as a whole country earns in a year...
what do we do to get this thing started?
just ote and that's it?
shouldn't we be hitting the streets????
On 2008-4-19 at 13:27 blommethomas said:
let's start with getting more people on here :P
By the way, I guess that when all those stories are spread wide and people get to know Younison, it will be placed on the political agenda. There have been some proposals to change sabam in the parliament of Belgium in the past, but they all died silently. This organisation could be a way to back those politicians
On 2008-4-21 at 20:16 Baffie said:
I just read about this in an article in some kind of magazine.
It's a great initiative! I will spread the word.
(It just sucks a little the whole thing is in english, since this is currently only represented in Belgium, dutch would have been more apropriate, until it spreads out in Europe)
On 2008-5-14 at 22:02 IBV said:
Thans to Younison we can bundle forces and together we have to unleash a "digital revolution" , every man counts. Younison gets my full support !
On 2008-5-23 at 16:03 ozark said:
Quite striking that we as artists never seem to be informed about things that are currently being decided.
hopefully this initiative will do what it says, that would really be something for the artists!
I liked the article stating a new and fresh approach towards collecting and redistributing
cheers
On 2008-5-23 at 23:51 cool said:
As a dj we always have to fill in these totally dork forms nobody really fils in anyway, so i suspect that the same thing happens with all the rest;-)
On 2008-5-24 at 18:48 fatslim said:
cool initiative
curious about the way you're going to kicks arse
baboo
On 2008-5-27 at 00:14 fabricelig said:
We know we never get the money we shoud get...but as u never know where, when your music was played...was sold,...we don't have any tool to get back that money...
Its probably possible now on technical side to set up a system to recognize the tracks exchanged, downloaded, sold on the net...
On 2008-6-6 at 14:11 Rha said:
Its time for the mandatory licence system to be used on every medium, the system works and is fair.
The fact that it is not already in use makes me wonder whom the collective sociaties are working for, us the musicians as the claim or ?.....
On 2008-7-15 at 16:40 ceilimoss said:
Four years ago, we have decided to leave the Belgian collecting society SABAM. Not only was the newly implemented annual fee higher than the income the sabam gave us, but since then, we've gained full freedom and can do things that was forbidden before.
Since you don't owe your own rights when you belong to sabam, you cannot allow a webradio (for example) to play your music without paying. It is forbidden by the rules of sabam and you have nothing to say. Since mainstream radios/webradios/webtvs/magazines will not give a damn about bands that are not in the system (cockroaches don't eat each other, do they?), small indie webradios are one of the few channels at our disposal to get airplay.
Do you think our career dropped? On the contrary. Considering we are a bit lazy and do not work our fingers to the bone on getting promoted, we Ceili Moss can proudly say we have achieved more since we regained our freedom.
Leave these crooks. Get your destiny in your own hands. Get creative commons licenses, register your partitures at a notarial office, and don't worry, collecting societies give small artists peanuts anyway, you won't even notice the difference.
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