Sacem organises Day of Solidarity to support the French music scene as it faces a crisis of historic proportions

Faced with this prolonged crisis, Sacem has committed to renewing its emergency aid fund for 2021 and will offer new exceptional royalty advances to bolster its members' finances. It will also strengthen its support programme for publishers and its direct aid to songwriters in an effort to invest directly in the repertoire of the French Music Scene and underpin the sector’s recovery.


A day to boost mobilisation in favour of the French Music Scene

Beyond its own action, Sacem wants to drive a broad-based movement to save music thanks to the strong and unified support of all stakeholders - media, platforms, influencers and fans alike. This is the reasoning behind the great Day of Solidarity, which is happening on December 7 with the support Sacem's partners.

To mark this occasion, Sacem made a powerful gesture by cancelling the Sacem Grand Prix ceremony in order to transfer its organisational budget to the direct aid programmes for authors, composers and publishers. However, it has decided to maintain a slate of prize winners and to communicate it in a different format in an effort to highlight the work of the artists and the diversity of French musical creation. (See details of the prize list in the appendix).

From December 7, the websites and social networks of Sacem, and its partners Radio France and Public Sénat will host this exceptional edition of the awards. They will feature audiovisual portraits of the prize-winning songwriters, composers and publishers, as well as other creators from different repertoires, so that they can share their experiences of the last 9 months and express their concerns and their hopes for the future. These testimonials have been enriched with content from the INA archive, a partner in the effort. The initiative will be reinforced with a poster campaign starting on December 9.

Sacem is putting out a call to mobilise both broadcasters and lovers of music. Indeed, as media outlets and platforms broadcast more tracks or playlists from the French music scene, and as French fans increase the number of French songs they listen to, royalty payments to creators will rise. Playing as much French music as possible won't cost broadcasters any more.

Indeed, whether you play tracks from the French or international repertoire, the amount paid for authors’ rights is the same, it is just the beneficiaries who change.

And to give this operation even more resonance, everyone is called upon to share their favourite songs on social networks, with the hashtag #SceneFrançaise.  It worked the first time: the Scène Française operation organised during the summer was followed by 250 national and local radio stations, and plays of French-language titles increased by 15 percent on streaming sites.

• A fund to compensate for the losses of music-industry professionals (€30 million): run by the collective management bodies, it would compensate for part of the loss of income of authors, composers and publishers.
• A raft of measures aimed at better compensating creation in the context of lockdowns and restrictions on gatherings: contributions for online broadcasts, even free of charge; co-financing of concerts in real-world venues, but without an audience; financing of a local e-commerce solution for cultural actors, etc.
• The creation of a tax credit for music publishers, to compensate for the gap that exists between publishers on the one hand, and record and entertainment producers on the other.