Robin Gibb, most famous with his brothers in the Bee Gees, also wears another hat. He is the President of CISAC and he is not happy.
CISAC is the Paris based Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies.The publishers consortium have been battling with the European Union Commission over songwriter rights and Gibb has now gone as far as calling the commission liars.
He says that he was lied to by the commission at a meeting in Brussels in July. Gibb says that the commission put of a press briefing implying that CISAC agreed with their position. “In early July I went to Brussels with a delegation of fellow music writers to try and persuade the Commission not to carry on down this fruitless path. We were listened to politely and then assured that there would be nothing in the decision to the detriment of songwriters and composers. I now feel that we were lied to at that meeting and worse - the Commission put out its own Press briefing implying that we agreed with their position. This is not the truth,” he said.
CISAC is trying to make the European Union Commission understand songwriters needs in a global, technology driven world but the Union’s inability to understand the needs. “Clearly we all know that in a digital world, where the new technologies are not interested in borders, new answers for multi-territorial licensing have to be found,” Gibb said during his keynote address at Popkomm. “Members of CISAC were in the process of moving this work ahead with the full knowledge of the Commission. But this work has been brought to a standstill by the Commissions actions since the Societies again face being accused of “Concerted Practice”.
Gibb objects to songwriters’ songs being treated as products. “When we songwriters write music we are not just creating a product. We create something which is an extension of ourselves,” he said. “Yes we exercise professional judgement to create the best piece of work we can, but it will be full of our personalities, full of our idiosyncrasies and full of our ideas. Whether we spend agonising hours searching for that perfect phrase, whether it comes out in 5 minutes of fooling around with a piano or a guitar, music writers create! They give unheard things shape, substance and voice. This is a process shared by all creative Artists. But sometimes the rest of the world just thinks this is more stuff for them to consume and they even have a name for it - Intellectual Property”.
“I have never thought of my work as Intellectual Property,” he said. “When I started writing with my brothers in the 60s we were embarking on a voyage of discovery with no idea where our ideas and playing would eventually take us. We created music because that is who we were, that is how we needed to live our lives. The fact that we created intellectual property was a by-product of the fact that we had an overwhelming need to write and perform together. We did not sit down and say “right boys - time to work on a new bit of Intellectual Property”. We wrote them for the fun and excitement of the projects - for the challenge of creating new works for different singers. We wrote them because that is what we do. This is what all creators do. We find ourselves at a time and a place where our very natures take over”.
Gibb wants the door between CISAC and the Union to reopen. “I implore the commission to reopen talks, use some common sense, take away the sledgehammer of competition law and let us work together to achieve your aim of a growing European Digital economy and at the same time enable authors to have a vehicle of their choice to help them earn a living”.
Watch Robin Gibb’s keynote address here:
