REFLECTIONS – OUR DEAR AND BELOVED SGAE (Part 2)

We began a month ago explaining what SGAE is, and to what extent all authors of songs created in Spain are obligated, WHETHER THEY WANT TO OR NOT, to go through the management of the General Society of Authors and Publishers if they want to collect the royalties generated by their works in our country, be they Mechanical rights (sales of CDs, DVDs, downloads, vinyl records, etc.), or Public Performance rights (radio stations, department stores, clubs/discos, music bars, festivals, concerts, etc.). Unlike the freedom of choice that authors have in other countries, here, as is already known, a private entity holds the ABSOLUTE MONOPOLY.

Therefore, ALL MUSIC CREATORS ARE THE SGAE. However, its management is shrouded in secrecy, and its members are democratically elected by those with the most votes (their influence varying according to their membership status). It's easy to imagine, then, that the votes are directed toward those who know how to perform their duties, in accordance with the interests of the organization's "bigwigs." The most well-known figure at the SGAE is undoubtedly the Chairman of the Board for many years: the former singer and businessman Eduardo García Bautista, popularly known as Teddy Bautista, who rose to true stardom in 1975 when he played the role of Judas in the Spanish version of "Jesus Christ Superstar," alongside a very young Camilo Sesto and Angela Carrasco. Returning to the topic, if there is no way to establish a more equitable system for electing the Board of Directors among all members, its management may not align with the needs of the 'weakest' members, who, as always, are the majority.

It's clear that the decline in physical/traditional music sales has caused a sharp drop in revenue for Performance and Mechanical Rights Societies (PROs). Precisely for this reason, the General Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) has decided to go all out to extract money from those who have to pay Public Performance royalties—that is, those who use music as a tool for their livelihood. Consequently, they're now targeting groups that were previously unthinkable: taxi drivers, hairdressers, nursing homes, charity concerts, etc. To summarize and be clear: The situation is dramatic and alarmingly disastrous. While authors and creators struggle to make a living, SGAE is trying to compensate for these losses with exorbitant collections through Public Performance royalties, generating consumer resentment and thus provoking massive illegal downloads. This ONLY makes the situation worse.

How can this be stopped? I'm not reinventing the wheel here by saying that the music industry (some more than others) has had to adapt to the inevitable. The internet is the present, and it's foolish to deny its infinite possibilities. Steve Jobs' invention, iTunes, the first online music store, announced in February 2010 that it had sold 10 billion songs since its launch in January 2001. And, as an example of our endemic backwardness, when Apple paid the record labels/artists their percentage of sales, these sales already included mechanical royalties. In other words, collecting societies were not collecting these royalties. Well, it turns out that the collecting societies sued the online sales platforms for using this strategy, and they won the case. Thus, record labels and artists no longer receive their percentage of mechanical royalties directly from download stores. Instead, these royalties first pass through the Professional Music Companies (PMCs) and reach their recipients with the corresponding administrative fees deducted. This ruling had other consequences. Because the decision was retroactive, online sales platforms were obligated to pay the amount corresponding to royalties accrued before the trial. In the end, they paid before and then paid again afterward. Unbelievable, but true!.

Meanwhile, as I already told you last month, our beloved SGAE, completely out of touch, still hasn't reached an agreement with the professional publishing companies, and that huge amount of money they've withheld from authors, labels, and publishers hasn't been collected or distributed yet. I say this with absolute certainty, because after claiming this money from SGAE, I was told it wasn't yet possible to obtain it. In fact, the relevant department didn't even know why, and I've been looking into it. Like so many things in this country, here everything has arrived, or will arrive, late and poorly. CD sales were prioritized over the need to prepare for the future of music in relation to the reality and future projections of the sector, over the obligation to raise awareness and make things easier for users, or over not going overboard with royalties. Had this been foreseen, we'd surely be talking about many people paying for downloads, and an industry generating as much or even more revenue than it does now, without the need for exploitative, usurious policies. Again, and I'll say it for the umpteenth time, it saddens me deeply how some things work in this country.