THE SGAE: fall of a corrupt empire

The succession of legal proceedings and creating alternatives like EKKI in the Basque Country accelerate the end of the management model of copyright, monopolized by the SGAE for decades.



The scene could not be more prescient. It was a June night in 2005 in Madrid. Head of the table, in the Valle hall of the Longoria, home of the SGAE (SGAE), was -Teddy- Eduardo Bautista, top leader of the Governing Board of the company since 1995. In right, the former Prime Minister Felipe González, always friendly with the former singer of Los Canarios. Against both José Dirceu, then minister and strongman of Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Among the guests at the dinner organized by the SGAE to honor the Brazilian politician, regardless of expense, it included a select representation of journalists, entrepreneurs and authors.

In the living room also he dined Pedro Farré, a steering young man who had a year earlier promoted to head of institutional relations of the house. Everything would be hunky-dory until the entourage accompanying Dirceu began to clear signs of concern. Continuous telephone conversations, abandonment of the table, comings and goings.

It was not for less. The next day the interview published in Brazil who uncovered the scandal Mensalão, a system of bribes and kickbacks to favor the parliamentary party of Lula, the Workers. In 2012, the honoree that night by the SGAE was sentenced to seven years in prison for his involvement in that network. Subsequently he was also arrested in the operation Lava Jato and accused of leading the plot of bribery and money laundering in Petrobras, Brazil's state oil company. 

Eventually, your hosts have also tried the bench. Farré was convicted in 2014 for embezzlement and document fraud, having spent 37,000 euros for prostitutes and cocaine under the SGAE.

And Teddy, the leader of the entity for three decades, received September 4 imputation of membership of conspiracy, forgery of a commercial document, false administration and misappropriation in what is known as the main part of the case SGAE, open from July 1, 2011, when, in the course of the Saga operation, the Civil Guard raided the Palacio de Longoria and arrested nine people, including Baptist, for the alleged diversion of funds to private companies within the board, among others accusations. 

The Anti - Corruption Prosecutor asks seven years in prison for Teddy, and 12 and a half to Jose Luis Rodriguez Neri, former director of the Digital Society of Authors and Publishers (SDAE), the digital subsidiary of SGAE.

With the trial when it takes place, should be permanently closed one of the most convulsive stages of an entity turned into a sort of ministry of culture in the shade, a powerful lobbyist serving very specific interests and machine revenue with straying Three presidents have sat in the chair Bautista from his defenestración-, unexplained accounts and a far cry from those who support its basic orientation are the authors whose rights managed.

TO LOSE CONTROL

Few creators of songs have reflected much on intellectual property and copyright as it has Ainara LeGardon over the past two decades. "During the 90s, as was losing control over my own artistic decisions, I began to realize that the mechanisms that drive the music industry can become very cruel with authors and artists," he told El Salto.

Then sang in front of Onion rock group in 1997 placed one of his songs on the soundtrack of Abre los ojos, the film directed by Alejandro Amenábar. An experience that was very negative, the straw that broke the camel to LeGardon: "I asked what to sign and authorize, and told me not to worry about anything, already tidied between the production company and record label. That's the biggest problem of musicians tell us where to sign, or hide us where we should do, and ignorance just accepting agreements whose consequences we are not aware. "

From there he decided to train in intellectual property and share what I was learning, signing some papers academic style. Also since then his music has seen the light at the edge of desktop publishing, with five albums released since 2003 and a sixth on the way. At present, she teaches workshops on cultural self-management and with David Garcia Aristegui has published this year SGAE: Monopoly in decline (consonni), a critical review of the future of the entity.

As an author associated with the SGAE since 1995 -a not very thoughtful decision recognizes, but common among those who begin: " He did not have enough information or the necessary maturity to question whether this was the only chance for someone starting to play halls and festivals, and sound in radios. He was about to sign my first record deal and someone told me to collect my rights should associate myself with SGAE, and I did "- 

LeGardon lives in first person some of the practices that have characterized, worse, how to operate of the entity.

"I would leave out the entity managing certain works and I can not do -resume-, I love you will not get in my name at times, and something that may seem so simple sometimes impossible". Also, he adds, would like to know how much they pay for the use of their music platforms like YouTube, "but it turns out that the agreement with SGAE is confidential and the authors have no right to know this information." 

As a partner, LeGardon has claimed copyright, but does not know if he has been paid all that would correspond to this concept or not. "That's one of the -apunta- conflict, lack of transparency and complicated to understand how much the collection as the distributions are made."

As an example, she points out that she has never received anything from copyright royalties YouTube - not sales or streams, which are entered via digital - aggregators, being SGAE the only way you have to collect them . 

Despite their differences, LeGardon prefers to "fight for change from within" and continue to exercise their right to vote in a little open entity to democratic participation: only 18% of its members enjoy that right. And a much smaller percentage is exercised in assemblies.

EARRING AND RUEDA

With opacity, LeGardon ranks as the most errors gravesde SGAE abuse its monopoly position, do not listen to the will of the authors and serve the interests of publishers, the E of the name of the entity to whom the musicians yield the rights of reproduction, distribution and public communication of his work. 

Lawyer David Bravo agrees with it and added to its list "a voting system that only allows top earners can elect their representatives and offered as such to be voted, maintain a conservative stance with any idea that contradicts his classic vision intellectual property in their repertoire not allow the management of copyleft works, and the existence of a huge bag of money raised without partners identified to deliver ".

The latter, called slope to identify, is one of the most controversial issues of the management of the entity. SGAE accumulate significant amounts of money raised can not deliver because they know their legitimate owners -errors in identifying the work, for example, or because they are not associated authors. If you have not remedied those deficiencies or remain to be partners in five years, the outstanding prescribed.

The fate of those amounts, which the authors can no longer claim and that, for example, in 2015 amounted to 17.5 million euros, it is manifold. During the last years of government Teddy, it was mainly used in the Arteria Network, a real estate project that involved the purchase by the SGAE theaters and buildings for more than 250 million euros. One of them, the Berklee Tower in ARTeria Valencia Cultural Complex, was never placed the first stone. Rafa Tena, composer and member of the SGAE, is one of the plaintiffs in one of the pending lawsuits that the entity, in this case by the extraordinary distribution of these amounts unidentified for some time took place between certain partners.

The other major scandal that has shaken the foundations of the SGAE in recent months has been the Rueda call. On June 20, agents of the National Police arrested 18 people in the Palacio de Longoria, accused of belonging to a criminal organization. Judge Ismael Moreno estimated at 100 million fraud allegedly committed this plot splashing SGAE workers and several television networks.

The operation of the wheel essentially consists registration SGAE, as new, musical themes of symphonic, slightly modified works. His television broadcast during the early morning hours generates substantial royalties despite its zero audience. The 'new' songs were recorded on behalf of persons associated with members of the SGAE and broadcasters involved in the plot.

SGAE AGAINST ALL, ALL AGAINST THE CANON

Pedro Farré, so far the only senior official of the SGAE convicted, entered prison in the spring of 2016. A year later, Ediciones Peninsula has led to bookstores Hunted, a sort of memoirs that tells his version, acknowledges his guilt and provides details of the daily life of a non-profit organization that came to raise 500 million euros a year.

For him, the three major errors have been no SGAE have planted alliances with media dulcificaran image of the entity; engage in repression by police and courts; and enter the real estate business with the aforementioned purchase of buildings. Farré began its work in SGAE in 2002 as director of the Office of Defense of intellectual property, and was responsible for the harsh publicity and criminal campaign launched against the "piracy". The detention of persons for copying discs opened the news or billionaires publicly singers festejasen the imprisonment of manteros were some achievements of the campaign, which placed the SGAE on the agenda of the media.

Perhaps the most important conflict was that the SGAE had with Traxtore, a small computer business, which, after a long court case would end with the amendment called canon, the collected compensation for entities rights management for alleged loss caused by private copying. 

Traxtore reached European justice, which in 2010 ruled that the canon applied indiscriminately in Spain and contravened European legislation concerning copyright. The digital canon was one of the horses toughest battle of the SGAE, since he assumed an important source of income, and aroused bitter opposition: the campaign "All against the canon 'delivered in 2008 the government more than two million signatures for its repeal.

Finally, in November 2016 the Supreme Court declared illegal the canon, following the guideline of the Court of Justice of the European Union. However, the Government approved on July 4 the decree law regulating fair compensation for private copying, which clearly marks the return to the model of Canon, with a fee on mobile phones, hard drives, computers and any support for digital data storage.

BUDS OF HOPE

Although the Council of Ministers gave the green light on September 22 for urgent processing of a bill, transposing a European directive, which will force management entities rights to audit its annual accounts and publish a transparency report, LeGardon It considers that successive governments since has looked the other way when it comes to the SGAE.
She recalls that, by the Law of Intellectual Property under the Ministry of Culture inspection functions, monitoring and control, including the exercise of sanctioning powers on these entities. Bravo, meanwhile, points out that for the State to conduct such oversight is "necessary that before the legislature would expand its powers to do so, it seems that so far not much interest in Congress." 

Looking ahead, the singer is hopeful and celebrates the creation of the Euskal Kulturgileen Kidegoa (EKKI), the Basque Agency of intellectual property, which is a gap in the system established by the SGAE monopoly and a possible management copyright on other grounds.

On 21 October 2014 resolution authorizing EKKI to act as management entity rights was published in the Official Gazette of the Basque Country. "Our obsession explains Igor Estankona El Salto, his secretary is to build the management entity that we wish for ourselves, because those who founded EKKI authors and authors are not professionals impersonation". 
In this entity, ensures pose charging for actual use, and any person or entity member has one vote in the General Assembly.

"Are and rights holders who tell us what to charge, when charging, where charging and even establish whether they want to charge or prefer the free route rights , " says Estankona, adding that "management of copyright is what touches start now. It is more important than ever that create culture whatever they manage, with the great responsibility that entails, social fruits ". 

Source: http://www.elsaltodiario.com/instituciones-culturales/sgae-ultimos-dias-de-un-imperio