SPA’s President of the Board & CEO, Mr. José Jorge Letria, was elected last May 10th in Brussels for the newly created Board of the European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers (GESAC). This new governing body is composed of nine leaders of other European author’s societies. Therefore, besides SPA’s CEO it includes top executives from societies such as SABAM (Belgium), which was chosen for the presidency, PRS (Great Britain), GEMA (Germany), SACEM (France), Artijus (Hungary) and SGAE (Spain).
This new governing body, which will be in charge of one of the most important international copyright superstructures for two years, has been unanimously elected by more that thirty representatives of author’s societies.
The Head of the European Commission’s Copyright Unit, Maria Martin-Prat, was present in the meeting where the election took place and announced worrying measures that are to be taken by the Commission against the interests of author’s societies and of the many thousands of authors they represent. The President of GESAC’s new governing body, Christophe Depreter (SABAM’s CEO), presented this entity’s goal of uniting authors and collecting societies against directives from Brussels that may harm European creators in this serious international crisis context.
SPA’s election results from the strengthening of the Portuguese society’s international presence and prestige, recently confirmed with the success of the annual general meeting of CISAC’s European Committee, which took place in Lisbon.
It should be recalled that SPA has a regular presence in several of said confederation’s committees and working groups, and that the society belongs to the Executive Committee of the International Council of Dramatic, Literary and Audiovisual Authors since 2005 in the person of José Jorge Letria.
Lisbon, May 14th, 2012.
