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SACEM’s
commitments

SACEM (Society of authors, composers and publishers of music) is structured around four basic values:
- a commitment: defending copyright/authors’ rights,
- an organisational model: the cooperative,
- a principle of solidarity: collective management,
- an ethical conduct: respect for confidentiality and impartiality.

Defending cooperative/authors’ rights

Royalties from copyright/authors’ rights are authors and composers’ only source of revenue. To guarantee authors’ intellectual property rights over their works, SACEM collects and distributes royalties, thereby playing a crucial economic role to preserve musical creation.

Authors’ rights are based on two fundamental principles: moral rights and economic rights.

Moral rights

All works are the expression of an author’s personality, thereby granting authors moral rights on their creations.

Moral rights include in particular:

  • recognition of the work’s authorship,
  • respect for the work’s integrity.

Moral rights, which belong to the author as a natural person, are perpetual and inalienable.
In their lifetime, only authors in person are allowed to exercise their moral rights.

Economic rights

These are the authors’ exclusive right to authorize exploitation of their works through licences for:

  • performance to the public,
  • or reproduction.

Authors have the right to receive remuneration as compensation for the use or exploitation of their works.

Authors may choose to entrust the management of their economic rights to a collective management society, such as SACEM.

A cooperative

SACEM is structured on the model of a cooperative: an independent association of persons having chosen to join forces to satisfy common aspirations and economic, social and cultural needs.

A cooperative is an organisation whose ownership is collective and where power is exercised democratically.

SACEM offers the same services to every one of its (shareholding) members, without distinction:

  1. The power of economic negotiation: members can obtain better remuneration for their works from those who exploit them and with whom the cooperative negotiates on their behalf.
  2. Common resources, generating economies of scale:
    • simplified negotiations,
    • legal and social security,
    • acquisition thanks to the Society of costly and/or complex tools.
  3. A national and global network:
    • national coverage for collecting royalties in the field,
    • integration in a global system of collection and distribution of royalties through reciprocal agreements with sister societies all over the world.

Collective management

Authors can manage their rights individually or choose to entrust the management of their rights to a collective management organisation (CMO). In practice, creators and publishers do not have the possibility of listing all the uses made of their works. This is why they entrust the management of their repertoire to a collective management society, which licenses the exploitation of works and collects royalties to distribute to their authors.

The principle of collective management enables creators to:

  • join forces to ensure that those who exploit their works respect their rights,
  • avoid having to pay transaction costs,
  • benefit from legal security.

In a digital environment with more and more players and dissemination channels, collective management remains the most effective way of protecting creation.

ETHICAL VALUES

Sacem ensures that its employees act independently and objectively and seeks to guarantee impartiality and confidentiality when processing transactions. We are highly committed to respecting the personal data of our members, clients and partners.