SACEM chairman hates everyone

The SACEM is a French professional association collecting payments of artists’ rights and redistributing them to original authors, composers and publishers.

Their president, M. Petitgirard, has recently given a couple of interviews to LCI (French 24/7 news TV), which I think deserve to be... highlighted:

• "If the law doesn't pass [HAPODI law, infamous for the "three strikes" policy], we will launch thousands of procedures. Tens of thousands if needed".

• "Apple doesn't give a shit about music : they just don't care!"

• "Maybe iTunes makes a little money, but what they want is simply to sell iPods : they are hardware vendors. It's an alibi".
  

• He adds that "Apple loves money a lot... a music a little bit" and also that "music majors are not necessarily my friends, but they are facing a vendor who makes a mockery of authors, performers and producers".

• To top it all, he calls ISPs "vampires" who "live off the illicit exchange of cultural goods".

Whatever this guy is on, he needs to lay it off now and take a long, hard look at R-E-A-L-I-T-Y.

Digital distribution is challenging the existence of collecting societies ("rightfully so", many people would say). Artists and producers are starting to realize thay, hey, maybe they don't need them anymore. As their cake gets smaller, it's quite obvious that they will be taking a good look at who's eating how much... and why.

In fact, hardly anyone wants collecting societies to survive, except maybe the top 20 French artists who get a lot of money from them. Even the EU wants to break their national monopoly.

SACEM and the likes are dinosaurs facing extinction. Adapt or die.


PS: ah, there *is* a tiny of bit useful information in these interviews. Deezer, the famous streaming music website, is paying SACEM 0.007€ per listen.