Copyright Group Prosecuted For Failing to Pay Artists
Written by Ernesto on July 22, 2009The attorney general in Brussels has concluded a three year investigation into the money trails at the the local music royalty collecting agency SABAM. The attorney general concluded that the copyright group is not paying the artists the money owed to them, and will prosecute five managers for forgery of documents and abuse of trust.
Royalty collection agencies go to the extremes, ostensibly to claim money on behalf of artists and music composers. They target schools and kids’ community centers for singing Christmas carols without a license, and some even crash weddings if they have to.
With all this dedication one would expect that such groups would handle the money they collect with care. However, according to a report from the attorney general, in the case of the Belgian copyright group SABAM the opposite is true.
In the report published today after a three year investigation, it was concluded that SABAM has been keeping money from artists. The attorney general further noted that SABAM was poorly organized, demonstrated a lack of internal control, and was unclear about how the royalties they collect should be divided between the various artists and composers.
It was further found that significant amounts of money were not paid at all, and were kept on the bankroll of SABAM. Aside from the administrative mess, SABAM has also misled artists by misrepresenting certain costs on their yearly balance.
As a consequence of these findings, five of SABAM’s top managers will be prosecuted. The five are accused of abuse of trust and forgery of documents. In addition, SABAM will have to compensate the artists for their losses. How much money SABAM held from the artists wasn’t made public, but it is a significant amount according to the report.
This is not the first time SABAM has made the headlines. In one of their most prominent legal cases against the Belgian ISP Scarlett, the court ruled that the ISP has to stop all piracy on its network or pay a 2,500 Euros fine per day.
The case against Scarlett is currently under appeal, but if SABAM wins again, we will be very interested to hear of their plans for any damages awarded to them. We seriously doubt that the artists they claim to represent will get their rightful share.
Previously: Anti-Piracy Group Claims Mass Mininova Torrent Deletion
Next: Pirate Bay Founders Sue BREIN for Slander and Abuse
61 Responses
awesome. thanks for the article!
Stop all piracy on their networks? That sounds like an easy job…
Can’t wait for neostyles to show up to explain to us that this isn’t really stealing, since nothing was copied.
The penalties will be puny.. :\
“royalties” should apply to kingdoms only, why is it even used in relation to petty entertainers and their slave drivers?
Can’t wait for neothingy to show up to explain to us that this isn’t really stealing, since nothing was actually copied.
This isn’t really stealing, since nothing was actually copied.
Artists and Customers FTW!
F*#K the RIAA, F#:K the MPAA, F+<K the suits behind the PSA and F{}K them ALL for the DMCA!
Ohh, what a news!! I would take ‘em to the street and publicly shoot them in the head. Confiscate all their personal assets and give it to the artists and transparent and well organized charities. Bunch of greedy ©o©ksu©kers… don’t deserve any better.
Now someone just needs to sue the humps at the RIAA because they don’t pay the artists shit either.
J.
Why the hell did it take three years?
Step 1: Roll into the SABAM demand the acount books, bank accounts statements and blackmail letters*cough* i mean invoices to be handed over.
Step 2: Have 100 monkeys *cough* dedicated accountants work through the books and make two figures, Money in and money out. NOTICE the discrepancy.
Step 3: Don’t profit
Easy
-Jay
neosuckling this taking of money is stealing. downloading for free is not.
@J
Times are tough; paying off political parties and law enforcement isn’t as easy in this tough economy.
:D
Sabam forgot to bribe someone. D’oh!
D’OH!
This will be found to be the case at every single such royalty-collection organization, I am sure.
What a racket…
@7
its BSA (business software alliance) , not PSA (public service announcement)
I seriously doubt that any copyright levy’s paid on blank CD’s ever reach the artists eithers. I would urge an investigation of all organizations that claim to collect monies for the artists.
I seriously doubt that any copyright levy’s paid on blank CD’s ever reach the artists either. I would urge an investigation of all organizations that claim to collect monies for the artists.
The entertainment industry is chock full of parasites!
Let’s bring the pest killer and finish them off!
Dam It!
guyz
sabam = sadam w/ baclwards b!!!!!!
some smaller or indie german artists claim this about gema as well. especially about performace fees, which at least from what one artist said, the place hosting the performance has to pay, even for the artist performing her own songs. Many times, more money is paid then the artist gets. So far, however, it seems this has always been ruled legal. Nobody knows exactly where the money goes cause gema doesn’t have to tell, but it likely goes to big celeb acts. So afaik artists can’t opt out of paying, but also apparently have no entitlement to what the places they play at pay in, not even a fixed amount of it. This seriously makes me wonder who I’m paying …
I don’t know of an english link but the singer summarized this here (german) http://www.kult-werk.de/GEMA/UrteilverkuendigungClear.htm
I always have thought and reaffirmed that all these pro-copyright organizations as the RIAA, SABAM, SGAE, GEMA, etc. are simply vulgar delinquents, pirates, parasites and thieves… nothing more, nothing less, and that definitely something very bad was happening with the judicial systems of some countries for allowing to these vulgar delinquents to do all that they want.
Fortunately in Brussels exists some justice yet. I hope that all these vulgar pro-copyright delinquents get jail for the rest of their lives.
Ooppss… I forgot to appoint to BREIN in my previous post.
It’s just like putting up a donation fond for starving kids and then instead of giving the money to the kids you just use them for yourself.
It’s kinda ironic how we allways say the music industry is greedy and now we’ve even confirmed that the lobbyists are greedy aswell, this is getting funnier and funnier for every TF blogpost.
I didn’t know pirate was spelt SABAM
@25
Although “spelt” is actually spelled correctly it’s definition is somewhat different than what you had intended.
spelt
O.E. spelt, perhaps an early borrowing from L.L. spelta “spelt” (c.400, noted as a foreign word), which is perhaps ult. from PIE base *spel- “to split, to break off” (probably in ref. to the splitting of its husks in threshing), which is related to the root of flint. The word had little currency in Eng., and its history is discontinuous. Widespread in Romanic languages (cf. It. spelta, Sp. espelta, O.Fr. spelte, Mod.Fr. épeautre). The word also is widespread in Gmc. (cf. O.H.G. spelta, Ger. Spelt), and a Gmc. language is perhaps the source of the L.L. word.
Oh GOOD! Now they can know what it feels like to be raped in the ass! :)
read 3rd paragraph again and replace sabam with u.s. government and everyone will get a clearer picture.
next target RIAA
Death to these assholes.
artists make fuck all as it is, this is still just a drop in the ocean, although hopefully a step towards the death of recording companies
tough, i’m delighted they rip off the artists, if their to lazy or stupid to organize them selves and make sure they get what they feel they’re due, then they get whats given – and they should have no problem with file sharers either if thats the case
Copyright Groups in all countries collect money AND less than 10% goes to artists. While Copyright Groups use over 90% of the collected money. It is same in every country.
Of course this Copyright Groups in all countries wants more money every year and are collecting more money every year. Copyright Groups workers salary costs are very high. Example leaders and co-leaders in Copyright Groups salary in year is average 1-5 million euros. When normal Copyright Groups workers earns average 400 000-800 000 euros year. Again this is same in all countries. In One Copyright Group can work from many hundreds to many thousands workers.
Example one Copyright Group have 10 000 workers and 1 leader and 4 co-leaders . Leader earns 5 million year when co-leaders 3 million year and workers average earns 600 000 euros so salary costs are about 80 million euros year plus all bonus thins add another 10-20 millions. Totally about 100 million euros salary costs.
All those artist money goes Copyright Groups salary and bonus costs. All examples are from USA, Canada, France, UK, Germany Copyright Groups average salaries.
Also Italy and Spain.
Copyright Groups leaders and workers are VERY highly overpaid.
Just proves that downloading is not stealing from the artist —– there wouldn’t have been any sale, and even if there had been, the artist wouldn’t have recieved the money.
This was the best part:
After a play a SABAM-inspector came and demanded that they had to pay because the author of the piece was with SABAM. But the person who they claimed this to was the president of the group and also the author of the play, and he was not affiliated with SABAM…
so according to them singing carols is
wrong but stealing money off the artists isn’t?
ahah nice.. and you idiots wonder why we download.
WIN for us bitches..
This is official PROOF that artists dont get compensated. OWNED. F*CKING OWNED Neofag and bongwaters and whatever rest of the trolls still on here.
We win we win we win we win hahaha
oh.. are you gonna cry?
sux to loose doesnt it.. well its great to win.
Why am I not surprised by this?
What would be sweet irony is if it turned out they owed Metallica a sh*t load of cash!
33–>”Of course this Copyright Groups in all countries wants more money every year and are collecting more money every year. Copyright Groups workers salary costs are very high. Example leaders and co-leaders in Copyright Groups salary in year is average 1-5 million euros. When normal Copyright Groups workers earns average 400 000-800 000 euros year. Again this is same in all countries. In One Copyright Group can work from many hundreds to many thousands workers.
Example one Copyright Group have 10 000 workers and 1 leader and 4 co-leaders . Leader earns 5 million year when co-leaders 3 million year and workers average earns 600 000 euros so salary costs are about 80 million euros year plus all bonus thins add another 10-20 millions. Totally about 100 million euros salary costs.”
———-
That a big waste of our money for maintaining a bunch of PARASITES that don’t provide any benefit to society.
Why are some governments supporting this organized crime against the society that in addition undermines the rights and civil liberties of the people?
BTW, excellent article
36–>”Just proves that downloading is not stealing from the artist —– there wouldn’t have been any sale, and even if there had been, the artist wouldn’t have recieved the money.”
———–
SHARING music files with others never was (nor will be) piracy.
Piracy is living as PARASITES from the hard work of others, which is EXACTLY that pro-copyright groups as RIAA, SGAE, etc. do.
Now who’s the thieves?
This is excellent. Groups like this think that they are above the law, and it’s nice to see them brought crashing down. Now, if only we can get the RIAA, IFPI and BPI like this…
It’s groups like these that give copyright advocates a bad name. Hopefully they will be replaced by a more proper antipiracy agency.
you can say this with a straight face the moment 9-5 jobs give up their sick leave, paid vacation, health plans, dental plans, 401k, retirement funds AND enact a largely performance-based pay system rather than a guaranteed salary (that they still receive even in the event of their product or service turning out to be a complete failure)
until then…LOL
@45: Not likely. I haven’t seen a single anti-piracy group that can do their job competently, the latest example being BREIN scum.
Keep in mind, this is how all these organizations work. This is how they make money. IF they gave it al to the artists, they would make nothing.
@ 46 Jul 23, 2009 at 15:34 by Anonymous
ah! wondered when fagnonymous would appear after cherry picking his comments to reply to….or splicing and dicing them …as usual you bypass the meat of the article to spew your nonsense…
ever heard of piece work you twat, and believe it or not there IS a world that exisists outside the USA.
sabam = sadam?
this fine organization crashed our BBQ and demanded the party hosts(me) to pay up. because we didn’t pay in advance.
about time some cards were called
Stating that these kind of companies as copyright-MAFIA isn’t that far-fetched now is it? :D
about time! this article is the definite proof of EVERY POINT I’ve been making. Oh, and by the way still wondering where is the so called “intelligent discourse” (AKA trolls). Whats up neoUnstylized, where’s the justification for these atrocities your idols (record labels) have been making? If they are so much of an interest it would be a kind action for them to be defended NOW
Q. why’s the economy become so bad in recent times?
A. f***ing copyright groups and middle-men hogging all the money for their own pockets.
Nice to see this :)
This is just silly. They’re not satisfied with the amount that they steal normally, I see. They just have to steal from the artists. Hypocritical to the extreme.
Oh sh…..60 posts and still no neofag.
sabam = Pirates
Most of us know this here & have known for a long time…
riaa/mpaa = Pirates
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