Sacem: improved governance and ever greater transparency

— France, Institutional, Press releases

On Wednesday 1st March, after an Extraordinary General Meeting in the presence of nearly 350 of SACEM’s voting members — authors, composers and publishers— SACEM adopted a statutory reform of exceptional scope.

Changes to 88 articles were agreed in a virtually unanimous vote to adapt SACEM’s Articles of Association to the new regulations applicable to all collective management organisations in France since 23rd December 2016.
Less than three months after the notification for the transposition of the Collective Management Directive* came into effect, SACEM was the first collective management organisation in France to comply with the European regulations**.
 

This statutory reform is based on four pillars:

  • a more important role for authors, composers and publishers in the decision-making process, with genuine reinforcement of the powers of the General Meeting;
  • creation of a Supervisory Board made up of SACEM members to oversee the Board of Directors and Director General’s activities;
  • creation of an Ethics Committee chaired by an independent personality, for the purpose of preventing and managing conflicts of interest;
  • reinforcement of measures intended to provide for greater transparency and improved information for SACEM members.
 

For further information on the statutory reform, click here

Jean-Claude Petit, Composer and Chair of the SACEM Board of Directors, comments:
“Organised in exemplary democratic conditions, this Extraordinary General Meeting was a success and confirms SACEM’s active response to the daily challenges encountered in an increasingly competitive environment. Transparency is in our DNA. Today, we are entering a new era, ever closer to the needs and expectations of authors, composers and publishers.”

*Edict of December 2016
**European Directive on Collective Rights Management of 26 February 2014

About Sacem

The Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (Sacem) aims to represent and defend its members’ interests in view of promoting musical creation in all its forms (from contemporary music to jazz, rap, hip-hop, French chanson, film music, music for video, etc.) along with other repertoires (humour, poetry, dubbing-subtitling, etc.). Its key mission is to collect royalties and distribute them to authors, composers and publishers whose works are disseminated or reproduced. A private organization, Sacem is a non-profit entity managed by creators and publishers of music elected to its Board of Directors. It has 157,270 members, including 19,100 creators from outside France (4,080 new members in 2015) and represents over 100 million works from the global repertoire. In 2015, Sacem distributed royalties to 293,000 authors, composers and publishers worldwide for more than 2 million works.