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Appeal to all music fans
22nd January 2010 / comments (19) / views (2009)
I'm pissed, mad, angry! I just returned from SAZAS – a Slovenian society of composers, authors and publishers. SAZAS was supposed to be in charge of collecting copyright payments in the name of Slovenian authors from radio and TV stations, event organizers, club owners etc. All of those are obliged to pay a fee for everytime they play one of my tracks and then SAZAS has to wire the money to me as an author and a copyright owner. Of course this is not an easy job as my tracks are played all over the world, but they have a pretty solid network of similar societies around the world.
The problem I need YOUR help with, is the clasification of electronic music. Smart asses at SAZAS treat techno as some third class any-one-can-do music. Therefore Slovenian electronic producers are treated differently then pop, rock and other artists, who apparently produce better and harder to make tracks. What does this mean? It means that those artists make tens of thousands of euros, while me and my fellow producers don't even get enough for a couple of decent dinners.
Don't get me wrong – it's not about the money, it's about principles. I earn my money elsewhere and definitely not from copyrights, but I just cannot agree with mistreating great and popular music like techno! Who are they to tell us that techno is inferior to pop, rock and other genres of music?!
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP ME AND OTHER ELECTRONIC PRODUCERS IN SLOVENIA?
Help me achieve a proper treatment for our music. Send angry e-mails to sazas@sazas.org and tell them your opinion about their unfair classification. The goal is 10.000 e-mails from fans all over the world. If you don't know what to write, put »Be fair!« in the subject line and »I disagree with your clasification of electronic music. I as a fan demand that you treat electronic music the same way you treat rock, pop and other genres!«. Of course it's nothing wrong with being creative.
Be sure I will let you know if our guerilla action will succeed and I promise you I won't forget your help. After all when (or if) SAZAS will change their stupid policy, you will have some credit for this. And that's something, isn't it?
UPDATE: Apparently their spam filter rejects the same topic ("Be fair"), so just change it and it should go through. Thank you for what seems to be a truly massive support.
19 comments - 2009 views
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from Salvatore on 22. january 2010
go umek. fuck them in the ass
from Urban Bug on 22. january 2010
Dear Slovenian Fans!
Allow me to invite you Thru Umek's Interview for Urban Bug Magazin Slovenia. When i was reading it for the first time i had some gentle doubts about it: "Is he a musician or novelist, due to looong-type-sentences way of answreing":)
Enjoy.
mag.urbanbug.net
Page 131 - ...
from JohnDoe on 22. january 2010
The word is spreading like wild fire...I have seen so many posts on Facebook about the story.
Techno is art in so many ways!
from conzul on 22. january 2010
the special mail left my pc =)
from SanTechno on 22. january 2010
All Suport Umek!
from fedja knajdl on 23. january 2010
Polsao sam e-mail svim svojim prijateljima a sada slijedi i podrska sa ARTIST page-a na facebook-u ;)
Velika podrska od mene...!!!
from fedja knajdl on 23. january 2010
Polsao sam e-mail svim svojim prijateljima a sada slijedi i podrska sa ARTIST page-a na facebook-u ;)
Velika podrska od mene...!!!
from Alex on 23. january 2010
Here's What I sent them:
Subject: Be Fair
Message: "Do you know how hard and how creative you have to be to make techno or any other types of electronic music?
The Electronic music scene is getting bigger and you should treat all Genres the same either way!"
Love your music Umek, Keep it up!
from emo on 23. january 2010
se strinjam uroš! niti slučajno ni pošteno in niti slučajno nima pravice sazas soditi o temu katera glasba je kaj vredne in katera ni.vsaka glasba je dobra glasba!in vse zvrsti morajo biti enakovredne.in če sazas "krši"pravice elektonike,potem pa naj se vsaj ustanovi druzba oz.organizacija ki naj vzame pod okrilje elektroniko,če že ta ni "voda na njihov mlin".sram jih je lahko... :/
Clark Wilde
from TheLuckyOne on 23. january 2010
Ja, ja - tale MZ Hektor; z veseljem bi ga... ne vem, ni besed, kaj vse bi naredu! Da mu j****! Ja, res je strup v majhnih flaškah!
from danen_d on 23. january 2010
We mustn`t let those bastards to mock to our music!!!
Support!!!!!!!!
from Urban Bug on 23. january 2010
I have s solution. Somebody will have to EXPLAIN that "urban pop-religion" exist in so many different ways. And nobody cannot deny importance of religion in general...
http://dk.fdv.uni-lj.si/diplomska/pdfs/stojanov-saso.pdf
from djgidra on 23. january 2010
Najveca podrska za Umeka!!! Poslao sam e-mail. Nadam se da ce nas biti mnogo vise od tih 10.000, ima nas na milione!!! Techno is not dead! Veliki pozdrav za Umeka, i za sve koji ga podrzavaju! Pozdrav iz Lovcenca!
from Azur_tuzla on 24. january 2010
Pokusavam da skupim sto vise mailova.Napravljena je grupa na Facebooku i obavijesteni su ljudi sta trebaju raditi.Svi koji su bili 08.12.2008 u klubu Arion u Tuzli ce slati sigurno...Velika podrska iz Tuzle!!!
from svashtar on 26. january 2010
word!
from mikaelstenseth on 28. january 2010
joust sent it!
subject: Be fair!
I disagree with your classification of electronic music. I as a fan demand that you treat electronic music the same way you treat rock,pop and other genres!
If you think it is somehow less difficult to make this music, i dear you to try to make it yourself!
Anyone can pick up a guitar, but not everyone can make it sound great! Anyone can try to make music on a computer, but not everyone can make great songs! This goes for all music and is not reserved for joust some genres!
from JohnDoe on 12. january 2010
This is the email i got back from SAZAS:
Society SAZAS understands DJ UMEK’s supporters; however we don't know whether his statement was derived from not understanding author's rights or perhaps from some other inclinations. Concerning his statement published on Facebook, we would nevertheless like to explain the following.
Due to untrue statements on the Facebook website, which DJ UMEK is making, we would like to inform the public of some facts. DJ UMEK is leading a double role. As well as being an author of music and an organiser of music events, DJ UMEK is also a co-owner of a company which organizes events with music, where his works are played as are works of other authors. DJ UMEK as the organiser or co-organiser of these events must pay compensation to authors for publicly using works of music, the same as this applies to all other organisers, which play works of music publicly.
Unfortunately, DJ UMEK hasn’t fulfilled his duties neither as an author nor as an organiser of events.
In 13 years (till year 2010) DJ UMEK hasn’t ensured the proper registration of his own patented works in compliance to the law, even after multiple appeals were made by SAZAS. Responsibility for the registration of patented works is namely that of the author and his publisher, all of which is well-known to DJ UMEK, which is why we can justifiably wonder at his public statements, that he hasn’t received any author’s fee and at the purpose of his statements.
SAZAS has even summoned DJ UMEK to deliver the corresponding data, which The SAZAS Association needs, in order for the money transfers from the author compensations to be correct, especially the money transfers, which he supposedly received from abroad, from foreign associations, with whom The SAZAS Association has sealed contracts on the mutual representation.
Doubt in the intentions of his (untrue) statements has been additionally emphasized because while DJ UMEK is a co-owner of a company, which organizes music events, at the same time he isn’t fulfilling all of his legal obligations, particularly, he either doesn’t send the programs of the performed works or they are inadequately or inaccurately completed. The main reason for this is that neither he, as an author, or even worse so, nor the authors of the works being used at his events, can receive author’s fees because, in spite of multiple appeals, his company hasn’t fulfilled its obligations and it hasn’t sent the necessary financial data, on the basis of which it would be possible to allot the appropriate author’s fee. And because he isn’t paying fees, this is leading to the impairing of other authors.
This DJ UMEK situation is absurd and is a clear case of conflict of interests, when a person such as a music event organiser isn’t paying author’s fees (which also other authors should be receiving, not just he), while on the other hand he expects to get money from The SAZAS Association, which (according to DJ UMEK’s opinion) should probably be taken from other authors, for events which he hasn’t paid for and for works which he hasn’t reported.
Society SAZAS
from conzul on 12. january 2010
JohnDoe, you are not alone!
from JohnDoe on 13. january 2010
I know , I just posted it here so we all have an update !