20 Music Week 12.07.13 REPORT JEAN MICHEL JARRE AT THE MPA AGM
‘WE HAVE TO MAKE MUSIC PUBLISHING TRENDIER’
After being named as CISAC’s new president in June - a position previously held by the late Robin Gibb - Jean Michel Jarre outlines his grand plans for the authors’ societies organisation
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PUBLISHING BY RHIAN JONES
J
ean Michel Jarre has been omnipresent of late. The French musician started his summer of appearances at Ibiza’s International Music
Summit in May before speaking at the World Creators Summit in Washington in June. At WCS he was named as The International
Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (or, CISAC’s) new president – taking the helm from the late Robin Gibb. Having worked as an artist since the Seventies,
Jarre has sold over 80 million albums worldwide. A pioneer of electronic music, the composer used technology to conceive a brand new genre and broke away from the traditional theatre and arena context of live shows to host state of the art events at landmarks around the world. Recently, Jarre embarked on his first ever world tour, which saw him perform in over 30 countries. Speaking at the Music Publishers Association’s
AGM late last month, Jarre was in conversation with the now-retired MPA chief executive Stephen Navin. The musician outlined his plans for CISAC,
placing emphasis on changing the public perception of the creative industries when it comes to protecting Intellectual Property. Speaking of the battle between the music industry and tech giants such as Google and Apple, Jarre said publishing had become ‘old fashioned.’ “We can’t reduce the problem of Intellectual
Property to just a problem of royalties or economy only,” he explained. “We need to also consider the fact that society sees those who manufacture
ABOVE
Setting the world to rights Jean Michel Jarre (left) and Stephen Navin (right) speaking at last month’s MPA AGM
telephones as trendy and at the age of modernity. But the smartphone is much less smart without us – films, music and literature – we are the smart part. We should get something from this big bag of gold. “There is big confusion at the moment that
creation and content has no value anymore - it’s our responsibility as publishers to change all of the mistakes we’ve made over the past 30 years. I wouldn’t consider Google and all these internet actors enemies - those guys were not even existing 15 years ago, they became giants without even knowing the kind of collateral damage that they’d create. It’s [the public’s] constant greed for free content – not theirs – that is starving our economy.We have to restore this image of people who are artists and publishers as the ones who are shaking the trees. We haven’t promoted ourselves well, we haven’t had transparency.” CISAC’s 231 members are authors’ societies that
hail from 121 countries. Through them, about three million creators and publishers of artistic works are represented. Jarre suggested that the organisation creates a bank of ‘relevant’ spokespeople to talk to the media as a ‘different and clearer way’ of educating consumers and lobbying parliament on behalf of rights-holders worldwide. “The film industry has been more effective than us for a while, we in the music scene haven’t been organised enough. We have so many acronyms - SACEM, PRS, ASCAP - this whole thing is quite obscure and it’s not helping us,” he said. “We have to go on talk shows, radio stations and the internet to find a different way of talking about ourselves - we have to send a clear message to the public. When we are talking about Intellectual
Property to the media they start yawning because they don’t understand what a publisher is, what authors’ rights societies are. We must explain and we must educate about the jobs that we’re doing in a trendy and exciting way.” Alongside Jarre’s new role, CISAC has also expanded its vice president role to four positions, enabling more territories and repertoire to be represented. The appointments include Javed Akhtar, a multi-platform creator from India; Angélique Kidjo, a Grammy Award-winning artist and activist from the West African nation of the Republic of Benin; Marcelo Piñeyro, an Academy Award-winning producer and director of Spanish- language films; and Ousmane Sow, a sculptor from the African city of Dakar in Senegal. This world- wide representation is another focus, said Jarre. “Intellectual Property is far beyond just a matter
of rights and royalties, it’s one of the foundations of democracy in societies and it’s not just a problem of established artists from Europe - it’s a global problem,” he explained. “To face up to issues we must organise ourselves to get a global answer and join forces from all sectors of creators. “As artists we have to do something that’s
beyond our interest. Intellectual Property and the rights attached to it is one of the most important messages for future generations and it’s even worse in emerging countries. We have to help them and from a political point of view. It’s our duty and responsibility to help those countries to save their soul, their identity. What makes an identity of a country is their gardens, craft, music, literatures, paintings - this needs to survive and we have to create economy for it.”
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