German collecting society GEMA faces fraud charges

Recently, the German music royalty-collecting agency GEMA seems to have mistakenly demanded 350 euro from the nonprofit organization Musikpiraten for publishing five Creative Commons licensed tracks. Musikpiraten released a compilation CD featuring the winners of its Creative Commons competition “Free! Music! Contest.”

Now, Musikpiraten is considering filing a complaint for ‘copyright fraud’. According to Musikpiraten, GEMA’s claim is false, because all artists have explicitly declared that they are neither members of GEMA nor of any foreign collecting society.

How could this happen? Well, the false claim appears to have been sent because some of the authors have names similar to registered GEMA members. However, even then, the notion that the CD features works from a Creative Commons competition could also have been a legitimate reason for GEMA to reconsider this claim. Apparently though, GEMA suggested that the artists probably forgot to register the tracks with GEMA, and now asked Musikpiraten to convince them that the identical names are a pure coincidence.

Artists say that the fact that non-members must prove that their music has not been composed by a GEMA member, demonstrates that this society has too much power. It is said that GEMA abuses this dominant position and therefore  anti trust concerns have been expressed. Collecting societies around Europe are facing trust and transparency issues that have caused them quite a lot of trouble, lately.

For instance, the French collecting society Hadopi was accused of having a barbaric enforcement policy. Also in The Netherlands, the integrity of the copyright administration of collecting society Buma-Stemra was openly questioned in parliament. Furthermore, executives of Spain's Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) - the main Spanish copyright royalty collecting society- have been accused of embezzling or misappropriating royalty revenues.

We will have to wait and see whether German royalty collecting society GEMA will maintain its current position in this case or will maybe give in slightly. Either way, the conclusion remains the same: trust and transparency are crucial elements for the music industry to function in the most optimal way.

Reference: Torrentfreak.com