The annual meeting of the European Committee of Societies of Authors of CISAC was held on 5th and 6th of April in Moscow, chaired by José Jorge Letria, who runs that structure until 2018.
About 100 directors of authors’ societies from all over Europe participated.
At the beginning of the assembly there was a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg which costed the lives of 14 people and caused dozens of injuries. On behalf of the European Committee of Societies of Authors, José Jorge Letria, in his initial speech, condemned terrorist violence, underlining that it is important that “violence, which is always the worst enemy of culture and life, do not harm the civilized life of our societies, do not destroy the work of creators and do not make us forget fundamental values and principles such as solidarity, humanist dialogue, hope and peace. ” He also expressed, on behalf of the dozens of leaders present, the solidarity of CISAC with the victims of terror and their families, stressing that “Europe and the world are experiencing difficult times and can not forget the urgency of being united in the name of what is fundamental to culture and the future.”
During two intense days of work which took place at the National Hotel near the Kremlin, the great current issues of copyright, especially the defence of the rights of authors with regard to the use of their works on the InterNet without fair remuneration for their use, the European Commission directives, the new technologies and their virtues and dangers, the dialogue between societies from all regions of Europe and the results achieved by the general meetings of the European Committee, in particular the which took place in 2016 in Sofia, Bulgaria, also chaired by José Jorge Letria.
On the day before the work of the general assembly in Moscow, José Jorge Letria, Mitko Chatalbashev, regional director of CISAC for Europe and Javier Gutierrez, vice-chairman of the CISAC Board of Directors, who was also present in the Russian capital, and Mats Mr Lindberg met with leaders of the Ministry of Culture, addressing various national and European issues, as well as with society Russian RAO, clarifying outstanding issues and reaffirming their desire to be able to count, in a constructive, transparent and conversational manner, with the Russian representatives of the collective management society of copyright in that country. RAO supported the holding of this general assembly and held a dinner that included an excellent jazz concert at Igor Butman Jazz Club, where some of the country’s best instrumentalists performed and were applauded at length. Igor Butman is the president of RAO.
At the end of the works, the president underlined the quality of the event and also the desire that it could contribute to the effective integration of its national structures in the defence of copyright and the interests of many thousands of creators. José Jorge Letria recalled that culture is essential for Europe to continue to affirm its identity and diversity and also to demonstrate that only peace and dialogue foster, in a global world, the convergence of wills of authors and artists become new perspectives of work and creation to the new generations. He wished to have a very high and participative number of companies from all over the world present at the general meeting of CISAC that is being held in Lisbon on 8 June this year.
SPA maintained contacts with the other societies attending the event present, always seeking Cooperation projects for the future.
On the 6th, in the afternoon, near the Kremlin, a demonstration of dozens of thousands of people against terrorism and its tragic consequences took place. Hundreds of polices asserted on the streets of Moscow, with large apparatus and circulation cuts, to control the normality of this collective act of civic protest.
The name of the city that will host the general assembly of the European Committee of Societies of Authors will be announced very soon, after various applications being submitted, all of them with interest and mobilization power.
With 103 integrated authors’ societies, the European Committee is the ancient, the most numerous and complex of all within CISAC, alongside the African, Latin American and Asian.
Lisbon, April 10, 2017
