According to InterMedia, in 2019, the income from commercial activities in the cultural sector amounted to more than 1887,9 billion rubles, of which 30% (about 550 billion rubles) was accounted for by the entertaining industry and media. As a result of the pandemic, it is these segments were among the most affected – the collapse of incomes has contributed to the prolonged isolation, the abolition of offline events and the General economic downturn in the country. During the discussion the experts came to the conclusion that the cornerstone of collaboration in the restoration and further development of the music industry should be the resolution of the situation with the rights of authors on the Internet. For this purpose it was proposed to collect specific cases and suggestions of industry representatives, to create an initiative group and to establish continuous cooperation between representatives of creative unions in the post-Soviet space. This work will help to analyze the situation as a whole and make decisions about subsequent legislative and other initiatives depending on the identified “pain points” in the music market.
during the discussion, the participants identified two main challenges faced by most composers and performers of classical music in the modern world, is the inadequate legislative framework in the field of creative industries and the lack of available digital infrastructure for composers and performers of classical music. According to the moderator, chief editor of InterMedia communication holding Evgeny Safronov, a large proportion of legal terminology is outdated, resulting in the laws there is uncertainty about the individual activity categories.
“In the music industry actively employs many people, but some of them are only de facto but de jure they don’t exist. NACE codes that we have spelled out, are so common that often their understanding is significantly different from the participants in the market. For example, under the spectacular industries of the state government understands the theatres and circuses, and concert organizers think otherwise. It turns out that they fall out of sight of the law. The same situation with composers – this specialty is not in the professional registry, so it to organize an Association to protect their interests will be difficult,” – said Safronov.
In contrast to the problematic of culture legislation, regulating intellectual property in Russia is sufficiently developed and flexible, says managing partner Semenov&Pevzner Roman Lukyanov: “Most of the terminology relating to the Internet, were transferred to part 4 of the civil code of the Russian Federation from the Treaty of the world intellectual property organization (WIPO). We have spelled out and separate powers, describing the capabilities of the author and copyright holder for to the online environment.”
the Expert added that the main barrier to the development of the industry can be considered low awareness of authors about their rights and their weak representation in digital ecosystem management of intellectual property: “Now comes the transition period, replaced the era, and it turns out that the digital space is something like space, where unscrupulous players try conditionally to sell and buy land on the moon.”
the Lack of a clear regulatory process and inadequate representation of interests of academic musicians in the digital environment do have an extremely negative impact on revenues. “I have albums available on several major online sites, but no profit from this I do not get. Due to legislative gaps RAO could not deal with the payments “with the numbers”, and yet we can only rejoice in the success of the Western colleagues. For example, I’m also in the French authors ‘ society Sacem, La, which is often proudly reports a constant increase in the share of digital revenues – including from Netflix. In Russia there are positive stories, I do not see”, – said the Russian composer Ivan Burlyaev.
the Chairman of the Eurasian Council of composers and musical artists Andrew Buchanan expressed the hope that RAO will cope with the legal and other difficulties, and the Russian authors on a par with their European counterparts begin to get rewarded with digital use of the content: “Many of my works – films and music – is registered with the Ministry of culture of Spain, in the author’s society. The income from this source is much higher than the same in Russia. Need to solve this problem by law, to work with authorities at the legislative level and to shape the agenda that will allow us to monetize your creativity in our country.”
the problem of the digital collection of authors is quite old, and often discussed at various international conferences, said General Director of the Russian musical Union, a composer, honored art worker of the Russian Federation, artistic Director and chief conductor of the Bolshoi concert orchestra im. Yu. V. Silanteva Alexander Klevitsky: “Pandemic clearly showed that the authors is one of the most disadvantaged categories of people. Concert halls closed, to stop the revenues from live performance, and most online performances was free. It’s great from the point of view of promoting culture, but we have to think about how to capitalize on intellectual work using digital technologies. A big role to play and publishers, helping writers to sell product and make money on them. I would like them to see only the exploitation of the content, but more active promotion of creativity”.
According to the honored worker of culture of the Russian Federation, General Director of the Russian state musical TV and radio center and radio “Orpheus” Irina Gerasimova, radio and online platforms should work together for more effective promotion of composers and monetization of their creativity: “Between radio and digital services is, of course, a competitive element, but we are not rivals. People connect to the evening or morning programs when I want to relax and enjoy the finished content, not to choose a playlist. At the same time we try to put on the air not only favorite and famous songs, but also to promote young talents. To do this we are recording new music, hold contests for composers and all of this content broadcast to specific projects. In this sense, we need a digital platform, because it is possible to fit much more music than we can afford in our aspect of the air.”
According to Irina Gerasimova, a new step for the development of the station will be the creation of specialized channels for broadcasting of concerts and symphonies, chamber music, works for piano, songs, including from Armenia and Kazakhstan: “We went on the principle Nichelatti, so the amount of content has increased dramatically. It all lies in the Internet, but we do not know how to monetize it. Here radio and platform must work together, together we help content creators to earn income from their creativity. Now it is hampered by the lack of a mechanism for the promotion of contemporary composers to the level of the whole industry – you must initiate legislative activity in this direction.” Remove with the authors and other musicians workload associated with the legal support and promotion of their works, and urged the Chairman of the Board of the Belarusian society of authors, performers and other rights holders (BOUIP) Sergey kuhto: “Society on collective management of rights must be more active in the sphere of protection of interests of authors to not take on the functions of lawyer, economist, accountant, marketer and so on. We support all digital solutions and national registers created for this purpose. In the post-Soviet space an excellent base for such infrastructure may be IACOP and technological locomotive will serve Russia. Now we are sorely lacking a creative unity”.
the Technological gap between Russia and the acknowledged representatives of the music market in Armenia and Kazakhstan. Composer, conductor, people’s artist of the Republic of Armenia, President of the copyright Council “Armauthor” Yervand Yerznkyan said that at this m��ment in the country, on the one hand, remain the major legislative gaps, and on the other there is no complete Toolkit for transition to the.
similar problems are faced also by the authors from Kazakhstan. “Technologically we are far behind everyone, especially in terms of intellectual property protection. Under the digitalization in our country mean only a transition in the digital material in relation to the economy, health, education. The music here is not,” said the composer, Chairman of the Kazakhstan authors ‘ society, Chairman of the Union of composers of the Republic of Kazakhstan Balnur Kydyrbek.
Russia already has the technological base to create infrastructure of the music market, private services are being implemented and in the countries of the Eurasian region in cooperation with ECOP is a legitimate player for background audio and videooformlenie commercial properties FONMIX and software complex Hypergraph that allows you to collect reports on the use of the content.
Despite this, Russia still lacks a niche of services for classic, ethnic, and other genres of music such as IDAGIO or Primephonic, said the development Director of LLC “national Digital Aggregator” Alexander Borovkov. “Unlike Western countries, yet there is no “society one window”, where you could receive compensation for digital use. In the field of classical music, we work with the firm “Melody”. All content that we receive on a distribution, we contract pass the primary sites operating on the Russian market. If we have the author’s share in this content we obtain from them compensation and then paid by our licensors,” said Alexander Borovkov.
Summing up the meeting, the moderator, Deputy Secretary General of the Eurasian Confederation of societies of rights holders Irina Yakovleva concluded that IACOP ready to organize a similar online and offline discussion among members of the music community: “At the level of the Eurasian space we are in close contact with many copyright societies of the former Soviet republics and are willing to implement the necessary support, including legislative, educational, and communication to solve different issues, controversial issues that will arise creative community.”
the Eurasian Confederation of societies of rights holders (AACAP) is an international non-governmental organization composed of leading national companies involved in the management of different categories of copyright and/or related rights in the member countries of the Eurasian economic Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the BRICS and other countries.
In April 2018 ECOP became h��Yung international organization “Assembly of peoples of Eurasia”, which forms the integration model of the great Eurasian partnership at a community level, bringing together more than 2,500 representatives of non-profit organizations, business and intellectual elite from 67 countries of the Eurasian continent.
EATOP – associate member of the International Confederation of societies of authors and composers (CISAC), has the status of observer organization, the world intellectual property organization (WIPO).
the Headquarters of the Confederation is located in Moscow.
