Music on noodles

Last week, some discographers and musicians launched several parallel initiatives to regulate relations in the field of discography and combat piracy, which in the past decade has wreaked havoc in all areas where it was possible. Especially in the music industry.

There it is no longer known who steals and embezzles from whom, and the ones who suffer the most in all of this, as usual, are those who do and produce something, in this case authors and musicians. It is enough to walk past the stands in front of the Student Cultural Center, which is the central place for the sale and distribution of pirated sound carriers in Belgrade, and you can clearly see what kind of business it is and how big it is. It is estimated that the piracy of music releases only in the name of unpaid sales tax in street sales reduces the state budget by 20 to 30 million German marks per year. In relation to this year's projected republican budget, which is normally talked about a lot these days, it amounts to a few percent, but the true picture of the size of this sum is obtained when it is compared with the budget of the Ministry of Culture, which for the first quarter of this year amounts to one million German stamps.

DAMAGED STREET: The real reasons why the former authorities have not reacted so far can only be guessed. But the formal reason is that the law that regulates this area, which is the Law on Copyright and Related Rights adopted in 1998, which according to all interviewees of "Vremen" is generally very good, has one, but important, flaw. It is that he foresees that the illegal circulation of pirated editions is not prosecuted by official duty, but by a private lawsuit. This practically means that the MUP units are not competent to suppress this type of crime, but the injured party is responsible for it. And since the injured party does not have the opportunity to collect evidence of someone's criminal activity, everything remains as it was. And when it comes to classic piracy and when it comes to copyright protection, the law didn't work there. "In practice, it looked like this: last year, SOKOJ filed criminal charges against RTS, BK Television and Studio B and - nothing to anyone. Why? Our lawyer goes to the prosecutor's office to see what's going on, and they tell him: 'Dude, do you know who you filed a criminal complaint against?' Such was the time," Ivan Tasić, director of SOKOJ, who had several ugly experiences with the former authorities, told "Vreme". On the one hand, chaos in the music industry suited the state because then its structures could hunt there in the dark, and on the other hand, it was a convenient testing ground for promoting various politically desirable sociological-cultural freaks.

NOODLES: As you know, there are two types of pirated CDs - "noodles", which are manufactured locally, and "bulgars". This second type got its name because until recently Bulgaria had the most developed, export-oriented piracy industry in the region and beyond, although recently our eastern neighbor also got rid of this compromising activity out of a desire to get closer to European Union standards. Unofficially, you can hear that pirate factories from Bulgaria have moved "somewhere" to the territory of the FRY, and it is an open secret that most publishing houses are engaged in this lucrative activity themselves, and even pirate themselves. However, the problem is not only in "bulgars", "noodles" and physical piracy. The problem of piracy is much wider than the problem of resellers in front of SKC, which, by the way, can be solved by a joint action of the financial and uniformed police. Piracy is any unauthorized use of music and other works that fall under the category of intellectual property, and this unauthorized use is not only carried out by those who do not remember.

The state of the domestic discography can best be seen in the fact that album releases are usually a closely guarded business secret that is not revealed even to the authors themselves. Discographers answer that the reason for this secrecy is piracy and unregulated relations on the market, so by broadcasting part of the circulation in the black and gray zones of the publishing house's business, they are as much as possible protected and protected from unfair competition. The consequence is the abolition of all standards, and thanks to the action of the powerful media, a completely distorted picture of the popularity of certain authors and types of music is created. "That's what I call virtual popularity," says Slobodan Nešović, owner of Automatik Records. "In our country, which is paradoxical, popular singers don't sell records." In the normal world, media are reflections of something that has a marketable value. When someone is the first on Top of the pops, he's first because he sold the most records, period. And here the media forcefully imposes what is popular, and whether it is really popular is unknown. Most often it is not."

"Instead of television paying us for broadcasting us, we need to pay television to broadcast us", in one sentence he describes the bizarre situation in which musicians have been brought in relation to the media, Dejan Cukić, vice president of the Association of Jazz, Fun and Rock Musicians, pointing out hereby also to unregulated relations on the media-SOKOJ-authors and performers line.

ADVERTISING FANS: "Our custom is that every media company that has television has its own publishing house. RTS has PGP, Pink television has City records, BK television has BK sounds, B92 has its own music production. These media release and advertise only their favourites, of course, without paying anyone anything, not even a tax for broadcasting advertisements, and at the same time they are closed to artists from other publishing houses. It is a classic misuse of national public goods such as frequencies, and a classic monopolistic business that is unthinkable everywhere in the normal world. We must all have the same conditions for the market match. Monopolies include the advertising of their own products only, without paying the mandatory duties to the state," says Slobodan Nešović.

The problem pointed out by Maksa Ćatović, the owner of Komuna, among others during our conversation, is the protection of the domestic market and domestic authors in relation to foreign artists, which is not limited to the fact that a pirated CD by a foreign author is at least three times cheaper than a domestic one. "In order to protect the domestic market and domestic production, in many countries an exact percentage ratio of domestic and foreign music has been introduced, which binds radio and television stations. In France, which is the most radical in its resistance to the globally most powerful American entertainment industry, that percentage is even 70% to 30% in favor of domestic music. Then Madonna and U2 and No Smoking are pushed into that thirty percent. In many countries, the ratio is 50-50. We should introduce something similar."

Piracy, especially due to the speed with which technology is developing today, is indestructible, but it must be reduced to normal limits, and not be the carrier of discography activity. The fight against piracy is a long process, for which it is high time to start. "And when things return to normal, the only secret in this business should be how to find a good song," claims Maksa Ćatović.

"Everyone is asking for something from the state, we are not asking for anything," says Dejan Cukić. "We only ask that the same rules of the game be introduced for everyone, and then let the market regulate our activity." Since it is a serious economic branch, the state can also benefit from it. In Austria, which is similar in size to our country, the music industry is the fourth industry."

"This is an important economic branch, and the regulation of relations in it is one of the very important conditions if we want to become part of the international community, for which we are declaratively advocating, and this new government must know that," says Ivan Tasić.

We asked the authorities if they know about it, and they say they do. The Ministry of Culture formed an expert team tasked with defining the transitional model of culture, and setting the foundations and legal framework for the future functioning of one of the most important segments of society - its culture. Dimitrije Vujadinović, the coordinator of this expert team and adviser to the Republic's Minister of Culture, told Vreme that the expert team for the area of ​​small and copyright rights, which also includes solving the problem of piracy, is in charge of an expert in that area, a professor at the Faculty of Law, prof. Dr. Slobodan Marković. In the regulation of this area, consultations are ongoing with experts from the Council of Europe, as well as with the Republic Ministry of Finance and the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia, in order to harmonize the laws regulating this area with European laws, and at the same time to protect all participants in the music production chain, from the author to consumer. At the same time, the paying power of our population is also taken into account, for whom the economic price of a CD of 20 or 30 German marks is too high, and that we should not cut things with a sword but find a way to preserve the market. When asked when the government can expect the first concrete moves to solve these problems, Mr. Vujadinović says that it will be very soon because the state urgently needs money. When asked to specify the term "very soon", Mr. Vujadinović says that it will be within the next month. A man sticks to his horns, and a man sticks to his word.