Moshe Zingel
Perhaps a new era in European mobility among copyright societies is starting in Tel Aviv. A group of Israeli artists who are highly dissatisfied with the way their copyrights management is being administered by ACUM, the Israeli copyright society for authors and composers, have hired attorney Moshe Zingel to collectively negotiate terms of admission to the Luxembourg counterpart society. But first they have to overcome barriers to disengagement from ACUM.
On April 9, 2008 Moshe Zingel launched a petition addressed to Israel's Antitrust Commissioner, Ms. Ronit Ken, seeking imposition of protections to ensure a smooth transition without retaliation against the departing artists. The petition was filed following the Israeli Antitrust Court's 2004 declaration of ACUM as a monopoly in administering both local repertoire and sister society's repertoire. "The Court found that the monopoly must be broken, but it never provided the tools to do so. The time is ripe to enable mobility among copyright societies", says Zingel.
Last year in June 2007, CISAC the International Confederation of Copyright Societies endorsed new Professional Rules for Musical Societies, designed to promote exactly that. All societies now must implement measures to allow mobility, easy withdrawal, and universal non-discriminatory admissions. They must implement measures to assure fast distribution to foreign societies, and no discrimination when collecting on behalf of locals and those registered overseas. One of the biggest barriers to mobility so far were the lack of transparency, inflated salaries of ACUM executives, as well as the assessment of exorbitant fees deducted from royalties payable to overseas societies, which can include high administrative fees, and non optional deductions for a pension fund, a welfare fund or domestic cultural activities. CISAC's new rules will unveil who is playing fair and who takes advantage of non local copyright holders.
Zingel hopes that the Antitrust Commissioner in Israel would impose the required conditions upon ACUM's monopoly, so that the existing barriers to mobility will be reduced, or at least exposed. "The combination of CISAC's new rules and the supervision of the Israeli Antitrust Court might be the key to break ACUM's monopoly", says Zingel. When asked why move the rights to Luxembourg, Mr. Zingel said: "Sacemlux is new in the market. They don't have a huge turnover, so I don't think there are any fat cats over there".
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