By Jean-Noël Tronc, CEO
© Jean-Baptiste Millot
On the 16th of October, Franck Riester was appointed Minister of Culture. In his position as deputy, Franck Riester has invested heavily in cultural and audiovisual issues. Co-author in 2011, with Daniel Colling and Alain Chamfort, of the report which prefigured the creation of the National Music Centre ; he is very familiar with the problems facing the music industry.
I would also like to thank Françoise Nyssen for her commitment and determination, especially in favour of author's rights.
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This autumn was also marked by the disappearance of a French music legend. Charles Aznavour, after a career spanning more than seventy years, leaves us nearly one thousand two hundred songs including beautiful texts and unforgettable songs. Charles Aznavour has carried the voice of French song loudly and clearly around the world, with works that he translated into several languages and which earned him a unanimous following, from Moscow to Tokyo, Berlin to Rio and Los Angeles, where his star was engraved on the famous Walk of Fame Boulevard last year, among Hollywood's biggest stars. In Paris, during a moving evening at Olympia, the legendary venue where Charles Aznavour appeared to the general public in 1955 in the first part of a concert by Sidney Bechet, the singer, with one hundred and eighty million records sold, also received tribute from many artists of the younger generation, with whom he loved to mix his voice so much. Charles Aznavour will be missed, but he leaves us with an invaluable heritage.
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This Magsacem brief takes a look back on the vote on the proposal for a copyright directive by the European Parliament on the 12th of September. This proposal for a directive must guarantee creators a fair income when their works are used by digital platforms.
Opponents of authors' rights have deployed considerable lobbying and managed to have the proposal rejected by the European Parliament on 5th July. During the summer, Sacem took the initiative to launch an information campaign, hand in hand with an organisation of songwriters, composers and music publishers, who I would like to greet warmly here. Our campaign has been supported by many sister organisations, both in France and in Europe. We were therefore able to make a strong contribution to the positive vote on the 12th September. This victory marks a milestone in the history of copyright because, for the first time, the forces of creation have won out against the giants of technology.
Don't get too excited though! Nothing has yet been agreed upon, and the final vote on the ratification of the directive presupposes that we all remain mobilised.
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On a social level, several developments are underway. After this year's implementation of the RAES reform, which opens up the mutual assistance allowance scheme to all Sacem members receiving royalty payments from the first euro credited to their account, other reforms were initiated around the CSG, continuous training and the establishment of a pre-account for retirement dues in 2019. The aim is to consolidate your social protection and secure your retirement coverage.
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In this Magsacem you can also read the interview with Pascal Bois, one of the two parliamentarians allocated by the Minister of Culture to a project to prefigure a future National Music Centre. Sacem supports the creation of such a public institution provided, as our president Jean-Marie Moreau recalls in his editorial, that it has new and significant public funding.
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For the past three years, one of Sacem's battles has been the reinstatement of practical music in schools. The Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, announced last September the generalisation of choirs in schools in September 2019. This allows us some hope that the repertoire of French song in all its forms will thus be better valued from a very young age. Very good news, as our company continues its programme to raise children's awareness of all music with the regular intervention of some of our members in schools. As such, our Music Factories programme has just been enriched with three new repertoires, Jazz and Improvised Music, Music for Image and Contemporary Music.
Published December 04 2018