40 MusicWeek 14.09.12 BODYTALKIMPALA
“For pop music in Spain, the levy solution is an
IN WITH THE OLD
OUT WITH THE NEW
Spain’s new government has done away with a dedicated Minister for Culture and binned its private copy levy system. Is this a step backwards for the music industry?
INTERNATIONAL BY MARK KITCATT*, CO-PRESIDENT, IMPALA ABOVE
‘The culture of subsidy’: Spanish minister of Education, Culture and Sport José Ignacio Wert. The country has compressed music and the arts into his busy portfolio
I
n the last week of 2011, Spain’s incoming government started to make its intentions clear to its citizens. It wasn’t ready to broach the tax
increases, swingeing cuts in education and health, and salary reductions yet; there were some local elections in Andalucía to be negotiated at the end of March and an array of manifesto promises could not be reneged on before then. But there was little political credit to be lost, and a fair amount of populist sport to be had, by bunging a few sodden sponges and ripe tomatoes at one of the nation’s, and the governing party’s, favourite Aunt Sallys – the arts. It was no surprise that Spain was deprived of a
ministry solely dedicated to Culture. The party which assumed government after a majority victory in November’s elections had merged Culture with Education in its previous legislatures and in the new government, Sport was added to the portfolio. The new minister, José Ignacio Wert, can turn a phrase deftly, and declared, “I shan’t cease to subsidise culture, but I shall put an end to the culture of subsidy”. It’s an idea that plays well in the shires. In the
mythology of Sr Wert’s party, Spanish creators across the arts, and especially in mass culture – pop
* Mark Kitcatt, born in Croydon in 1964, spent his teenage years – and money – in London record shops and small rock clubs. His first job was in a Rough Trade warehouse in 1985 – where he stayed until moving to Spain in 1990 – where he has been working since, directing and co- owning Everlasting Records and Popstock Distribuciones, with offices in Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon. Board member of the Spanish independent labels’ association, UFI, and co- president of Impala, Kitcatt resides in the bohemian barrio of Chueca in Madrid with his wife and children.
music, cinema, and such vehicles of instant communication of ideas – produce next to nothing of value and are maintained by the grace and favour of the hairy, corduroy-clad left. And there’s a truth there; since the middle of the 1980s, public money has been an important player on the Spanish live music scene. In a country which seems to have endless layers of government, political advisors, and wonks, free access festivals and concerts have been – along with all those unopened motorways and empty airports – popular bribes to voters, to ensure four more years of influence. Anyway, the message was clear. The sub-text,
too, if we care to decipher it. That same year end, the minister declared an end to the system of private copy levy as it had been applied up till then (to compensate the exception to the creator’s exclusive right to make copies of her work, a levy was raised on recording devices), and proposed a replacement. The compensation would now be paid, and its level decided, by government, and drawn from the central tax take. The only other European country which deals with the copy exception in this way is Norway. Norway, though, has a population of 4.9 million people and that population last year paid €49m to creators for this exception. Spain has a population of nearly 50 million and proposes a total subsidy of €5m, replacing the €115m generated last year by the levy.
This was the reward for a long and cleverly
waged campaign by the electronics industry, utilising consumer groups and ‘Internaut Associations’ of doubtful representativity, to further their arguments that the levy was driving up prices of their goods. The exception to the exclusive copyright originated in a 1987 law, likewise at the
behest of the manufacturers of tape machines, in order to enable commercialisation of same. This in turn was inspired by a model conceived in Germany in the mid-1960s. Though it arises from a contorted situation (the
inability of the creators to enforce or license their right of reproduction over their works), the levy solution is, I think, and at least for pop music and in Spain, an elegant one. It’s good for fans to be able to move music around, and good for smartphone makers (penetration in Spain is twice the EU average) to be able to include memory and recording functions on them. The people who benefit recompense the people
whose work makes the machines worth buying. You can envisage the principle being extended to a number of situations where creators can’t license and which they’d rather not have to try to prevent. It could be the future. But, it doesn’t look like it will be in Spain. The
artist must sing to the state for his supper, and the right has been replaced with what looks very much like a subsidy. The central tax take is the money that governments think is theirs, to do with as they please. Including controlling the medium and the message. The public television and radio here are paid out of it and there has just been, as after every Spanish election, a wave of sackings of journalists and presenters identified with the previous administration. Spain is asking for billions of euros to bail out saving banks and regional governments; why should the Spanish taxpayer have to take over the burden of paying the private copy exception from the companies who profit from it? And believe it or not, smartphones and MP3
players haven’t got any cheaper for the removal of the levy, either.
elegant one. It’s good for fans and for the creators of smart-phones” MARK KITCATT, IMPALA
www.musicweek.com
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