3 ms·

You are completely right in your assumption. GEMA sole function is to collect royalties for songwriters -- not performing artists, just the writers -- and secon

You are completely right in your assumption. GEMA sole function is to collect royalties for songwriters -- not performing artists, just the writers -- and secondary right holders (like publishers) and distribute it to them. They are in fact a non-profit. Every penny they make, they have to distribute to their members (minus operating costs). German people have a very interesting and uninformed bias against GEMA, which has been fueled by the laughable YT/GEMA dispute over the past years. It is easy to see why: GEMA provides absolutely no service to anyone outside of the few thousand songwriters they represent. YT provides a service to millions, for free, and GEMA disrupts that service. GEMA is slow, old and very, very unsexy. YT is here to make everyone and their mom happy. It's a tough sell.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
>they have to distribute to their members (minus operating costs). // I don't know if it applies here but you can usually fit a quite sizable fortune through that hole there. In a similar way not-for-profit orgs can pay whatever wage they decide, so are operating costs appropriately ~5% mark that the best charities manage or are they higher? When you say "have to" presumably you mean they're under a legal and enforced obligation. Linking the groups latest accounts here would be interesting I'm sure.
- _0ffh 10y ago
  Well, a quick search gave me 380,000€ per year for the chairman of the board of directors in 2011. [1] (Do not be confused by the mention of the "Belgian GEMA" in the title!) [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Ftp%2Fartikel%2F34%2F34218%2F1.html&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...
_0ffh 10y ago
There might be an uninformed bias for some people. But there is a very well informed one for many others. Just a few examples... - Gema is a monopoly and has (until now) successfully used it's political power to stay one. The last chairman of the board of directors even boasted that Gema has managed to "avoid useless competition". - 65% of the money Gema passes on goes to 5% of it's members, the full members. These 3400 full members of Gema are also the ones who elect the people who get a job on the board and the committees. Those then decide how the money Gets distributed. Sounds legit! [1] - If a band plays their own songs in a concert, and the organizer has to pay 300€ to Gema for this, which then gives 2.80€ back to the band at the end of the year - that's not even the worsts case. [2] [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fr-online.de%2Fkultur%2Fstreit-um-gema-gebuehren-gema--der-club-der-oberen-3400%2C1472786%2C16472672.html https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=h... [2] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fbrunokramm.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F12%2F15%2Fdiezweiklassen%2F&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...
patall 10y ago
Or maybe they hate GEMA for being a big lobbying organization that enforces laws for which you really have to squish your thinking to justify them: I for one, hate them because for every type of data storage I buy, I pay some percentage to them, because I COULD use those to store their music on it. I do not listen to music at all (really), so I have to pay a private organization basically a tax for nothing. Remind you that you are not allowed to copy those music by this law, you pay for being able to make a backup of information you possess.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

>they have to distribute to their members (minus operating costs). // I don't know if it applies here but you can usually fit a quite sizable fortune through that hole there. In a similar way not-for-profit orgs can pay whatever wage they decide, so are operating costs appropriately ~5% mark that the best charities manage or are they higher? When you say "have to" presumably you mean they're under a legal and enforced obligation. Linking the groups latest accounts here would be interesting I'm sure.

_0ffh 10y ago
Well, a quick search gave me 380,000€ per year for the chairman of the board of directors in 2011. [1] (Do not be confused by the mention of the "Belgian GEMA" in the title!) [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Ftp%2Fartikel%2F34%2F34218%2F1.html&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...

_0ffh 10y ago

There might be an uninformed bias for some people. But there is a very well informed one for many others. Just a few examples... - Gema is a monopoly and has (until now) successfully used it's political power to stay one. The last chairman of the board of directors even boasted that Gema has managed to "avoid useless competition". - 65% of the money Gema passes on goes to 5% of it's members, the full members. These 3400 full members of Gema are also the ones who elect the people who get a job on the board and the committees. Those then decide how the money Gets distributed. Sounds legit! [1] - If a band plays their own songs in a concert, and the organizer has to pay 300€ to Gema for this, which then gives 2.80€ back to the band at the end of the year - that's not even the worsts case. [2] [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fr-online.de%2Fkultur%2Fstreit-um-gema-gebuehren-gema--der-club-der-oberen-3400%2C1472786%2C16472672.html https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=h... [2] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fbrunokramm.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F12%2F15%2Fdiezweiklassen%2F&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...

patall 10y ago

Or maybe they hate GEMA for being a big lobbying organization that enforces laws for which you really have to squish your thinking to justify them: I for one, hate them because for every type of data storage I buy, I pay some percentage to them, because I COULD use those to store their music on it. I do not listen to music at all (really), so I have to pay a private organization basically a tax for nothing. Remind you that you are not allowed to copy those music by this law, you pay for being able to make a backup of information you possess.