[A2k] Fwd: Response to CISAC's challenge to Brazilian new collecting societies' law
Ronaldo Lemos
rlemos at fgv.br
Sat Aug 17 12:49:49 PDT 2013
Dear Anne-Catherie (and other list members),
Thanks for letting me know attachments don't work with the list.
Please find below a transcription of both letters I mentioned. And once
again, the law has just been enacted by the president.
Best regards,
Ronaldo
Neuilly-sur-Seine, July 30
th
2013
Ms Dilma Rousseff
President of Brazil
On behalf of the artistic creators of the world, we are writing to express
our grave concerns with
the amendments to the Copyright Law (Senate Project No. 129 of 2012, “the
Bill”) which will
severely and unfairly undermine the ability of music creators to obtain
fair royalties for the
performance of their songs in Brazil.
Considering all of the talk in Brazil about “democratization of cultural
access” and “transparency,”
we are shocked by the decidedly undemocratic and opaque process that has
led to this bill. The
people of the Brazilian creative community, and the Collective Management
Organizations acting
on their behalf, would be the ones most impacted by the proposed
legislation, yet they have not
been consulted. The reasons for urgently passing this bill, which is not
only imperfect but appears
unconstitutional in parts, remain a mystery.
While we are certainly enthusiastic about streamlining licensing and
innovating the collective
management system, this needs to be accomplished via a thorough, respectful
discussion
between all interested parties. Specifically, we are concerned that the
bill threatens the
independence of Brazilian authors societies’ as legally-operating
associations subject to the
guarantees provided in the Brazilian Constitution. In particular, we are
concerned about
provisions that could result in significant interference in the internal
operations of our societies,
and require that our societies release sensitive information regarding
creators’ royalties and other
documents to the general public.
Across the world, our collective management organizations exist to serve
us, the creators. They
defend our rights, represent us in negotiations, and ensure that royalties
are paid and distributed.
While their dedication to securing the largest possible audience for our
works certainly benefits
the people who have come to love our music, movies, books and images, they
are not
representatives of the public interest. Therefore, while we, the members,
have a right to demand
transparency regarding collections and distributions, we believe that
releasing unnecessary
information to the public (and our competitors) violates our right to
privacy and data protection.
Thus, the provisions in the bill related to authors’ societies’
responsibility to the public interest
must be changed.
Additionally, other provisions in the bill which effectively ban blanket
licenses and introduce statesponsored fragmentation of the licensing
marketplace, would overwhelm societies’ resources,
preventing them from upholding their obligations to their members. This
would also lead to mass
confusion. As we all know, content users who want to duck out of their
royalty obligations thrive
on confusion.
We therefore call on you to halt this rash and potentially damaging bill in
order to find mutually
beneficial solutions in consultation with all stakeholders, including
creators. We also demand that
an impact analysis be carried out to ascertain the potential risks of
enacting this legislation to both
the creative economy and the national economy as a whole.
The licensing system needs to be modernized; we can all agree on that.
Let’s put a stop to this illconceived bill and work together - creators,
content users and the government - to build a piece of
legislation that will guarantee Brazil’s cultural predominance and economic
vibrancy well into the
Sincerely,
Jean Michel Jarre
President of CISAC
Angélique Kidjo
CISAC Vice President
Ousmane Sow
CISAC Vice President
Javed Akhtar
CISAC Vice President
Marcelo Piñeyro
CISAC Vice President
August 5, 2013
Mr. Jean Michel Jarre
President of CISAC
The composers and music performers of Brazil do not feel represented by
your
quite surprising letter to President Dilma Rousseff, to whom we are also
sending a
copy of this letter, duly translated into Portuguese.
It is strange for us to see a foreign author talking “on behalf of the
artistic creators of
the world,” as if your take on the matter could better describe the state
of affairs in
Brazil than the understanding of worldwide renowned Brazilian authors such
as
Roberto Carlos, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Erasmo Carlos,
Djavan,
Ivan Lins, Marisa Monte, Lenine and many, many others. All these top
royalty
collectors and countless other musicians from many genres and generations
subscribe to this letter (through Associação Procure Saber and GAP
PróMúsica).
They all joined the discussions regarding the Senate Project No 129 of 2012
(“the
Bill”) and ended up being wholly supportive of its text.
Likewise, your peculiar opinion about the role of Collective Management
Organizations, which would not be “representatives of the public interest,”
is not
shared by the Brazilian Constitutional Court (STF). Our higher Court has
already
stated that the environment in which such entities perform their activities
is a truly
public one, even if not state-run. This sounds pretty logical to us, given
the fact that
these entities interact with a whole universe of content users and an
enormous
number of right holders – in whose sole name and behalf the CMOs were
created in
the first place.
In a disrespectful and scornful manner, your letter calls the process that
led to this
Bill “undemocratic and opaque.” On the contrary, this Bill is the result of
a Special
Senate Committee and before approval it was in Congress for more than one
year.
During this period the Bill fulfilled all steps it was required to. The
very directors of
ECAD, together with CMO representatives, were received by Members of the
Congress to discuss the wording of the Bill.
In addition, obviously this legislative process was also influenced by
years of
previous discussions, including other Special Congressional Committees,
not to
mention 6 years of National Seminars and other meetings promoted by the
Brazilian
Ministry of Culture between 2007 and 2012. Such discussions included two
public
consultations about Draft Bills with chapters on collective management that
were
substantially similar to the Bill. Unfortunately, during all this period
of time, we
never really perceived from CISAC any enthusiasm about “innovation” and
“modernization” of the collective management system. This enthusiasm was
particularly hard to spot when the winds of Brazilian politics seemed to
blow in
favor of the status quo of Brazilian CMOs.
Nonetheless, we are available for arguing about ideas of change, and not
only
abstract ones. In fact, we have been trying to foster the debate for the
past 10 years,
getting nowhere most of the time. It took the approval of a Bill for CISAC
to send a
not so clear signal of its will to establish a dialogue. But unfortunately
your letter
doesn’t help much, rather drawing upon the same old overstated, untrue
It isn’t true that the Bill hurts Brazilian Law concerning privacy and data
protection.
Sensitive information regarding creators’ royalties will not be revealed
to the
general public. Their rights are protected. It is also untrue that the
project bans
blanket licenses or introduces “state-sponsored fragmentation of the
licensing
marketplace.” We can hardly understand where these conclusions came from,
the
only possibility being a careless reading of the Bill.
All this misinformation is what seems to us as an attempt to lead to
“mass
confusion”–the perfect environment for the status quo of Brazilian CMOs to
ask for
“impact analyses” and other euphemisms to keep things just the way they
are –
postponing forever the necessary changes that we, Brazilian creators demand.
We are sure that this Bill, approved by both Houses of Brazilian Congress,
guarantees not only “Brazil’s cultural predominance,” but also our
leading role in
the necessary changes of the collective management scenario in the world.
Of course
each country has its own history, but this Bill definitely brings more
balanced
solutions than the ones proposed by the European Copyright Directive
currently
being discussed. And this Bill is certainly less “interventionist” than
the existing
statutes in other countries, France being a good example.
There is no “mystery” on the road that led to the Bill. Only presumption
could
explain such an interpretation concerning the approval of a new statute
by a
sovereign nation which respects all the Copyright Treaties it signs. The
Bill
represents our will, as expressed unanimously by 594 elected Members of
our
Parliament representing 200 million Brazilians. It reflects the desires of
Brazilian
creators and follows the rules of Brazilian democracy.
Associação Procure Saber GAP – Grupo de Ação Parlamentar Pró-Música
On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Anne-Catherine Lorrain <aclorrain at gmail.com
> wrote:
> Thanks but as mentioned previously, this server does not allow
> attachments (and unfortunately I don't read Portuguese)... As I am a
> lawyer researching on those issues (as you can see on my linkedin
> profile), I would greatly appreciate being able to read the documents
> that you're referring to. If you could just attach them to an email
> that you would send me individually, that would be great.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Anne-Catherine Lorrain
> aclorrain at gmail.com
> Mob.: +32 473 99 97 92 (BE) / +49 151 23 69 79 16 (DE)
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/aclorrain
> www.communia-association.org
> @AClorrain
>
>
> 2013/8/16 Ronaldo Lemos <rlemos at fgv.br>:
> > Now with the attachments (hopefully, because it seems they were blocked
> by
> > the serve). The good news are that the law was just sanctioned by
> president
> > Dilma yesterday, without any vetoes. Here is the full official text in
> > Portuguese:
> > http://www.planalto.gov.br/CCIVIL_03/_Ato2011-2014/2013/Lei/L12853.htm
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Ronaldo Lemos <rlemos at fgv.br>
> > Date: Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 1:14 PM
> > Subject: Response to CISAC's challenge to Brazilian new collecting
> > societies' law
> > To: a2k at lists.keionline.org
> >
> >
> > Dear All, as some of you might be following, Brazil has passed
> > groundbreaking regarding collecting societies, aiming at transparency,
> > efficiency, and better governance (I process of which I'm proud of having
> > participated).
> >
> >
> > However, CISAC has come forward and published a letter responding the the
> > Brazilian new law.
> >
> > A response to CISAC's position has been promptly drafted.
> >
> > So please find attached both CISAC's position letter, and also the
> Response
> > to its claim (translated into a few different languages).
> >
> > If you believe this issue is important, please help us spread the debate
> > with your contacts and networks.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Ronaldo Lemos
> > _______________________________________________
> > A2k mailing list
> > A2k at lists.keionline.org
> > http://lists.keionline.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k_lists.keionline.org
>
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