Association of Singers, Songwriters and Musicians assesses state of Czech music scene

The Czech Association of Singers, Songwriters and Musicians, SAI, which has a few hundred members and is supported by several thousand artists around the country was formed in 1989 to promote all forms of music and protect the rights of artists in the Czech Republic. On Sunday, its board held its annual meeting to assess the current state of the Czech music scene, especially a new copyright law that came into effect this year.

We speak with board member Daniel Andel from the publishing house Muzikus to find out how Czech artists are faring and how effective the Association's work has been:

"We have two main organisations that are allowed to distribute copyright money to singers, musicians, and songwriters. OSA is the association of songwriters and Intergram is the association of musicians, singers and actors. These two associations take the money from television stations, radios and concerts and give it to the respective artist. SAI is the association of songwriters, singers, and musicians that tries to monitor the two organisations and ensure that the law is respected and clear."

Tell us a little bit about the Czech world of music. What kind music is popular here?

"I think it's very similar to other countries in Europe and in the USA. There is a 'renaissance' of world music that has come after our period of rock music but the mainstream is still pop music and it's the same as in Europe."

So do you know how much Czech music is being played, compared to international or foreign music?

"It really depends on the radio station but it is between 30-60 percent."

If I am correct then Germany has a law which states that a certain percentage of music that's played on the radio has to be German. Does the Czech Republic have a similar law?

"There was an attempt to have such a law but no, we don't have it."

How many songwriters, musicians, singers does this country with a population of ten million have, who have produced albums that have been sold on the market?

"We cannot tell but it is something between 10,000-80,000 musicians."

You held a meeting at which you discussed the current situation in the Czech Republic, especially the copyright law, which was changed this year...

"The copyright law was changed in 2001 and it wasn't so bad but in the last two years, some organisations did a lot of lobbying to change the law, also because of the internet and other developments. It was the hotels that did the lobbying because they had to pay for the music they played, regarding TV and radio broadcasts in hotel rooms. They have to pay ten crowns a day for every room that has a guest. This comes to about 40-50 million Czech crowns [around 1.7 million US dollars]. This is not much for them but a lot for the songwriters and musicians. And we have to do something about it because this law is not common in the European Union."

Do you think you stand a chance in changing the law?

"We are planning to go to Brussels and inform them that we have a law here that's not compatible with EU laws."

What about the culture ministry?

"The Culture Ministry has tried to help us and we are in close cooperation but it only gets 0.68% of the state budget, so it's really very small."

Are you otherwise satisfied with the way things are working here as far as the distribution of copyright money is concerned?

"Yes. Of course there are many smaller problems but we can generally say it works. TV stations, for example, didn't want to pay for reruns but we then lobbied against it and they changed back the law and now they pay for reruns again."