AKM authors, composers and music publishers

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Authors, composers and music publishers reg. Cooperative ltd
logo
purpose Collecting society
Chair: Gernot Graninger (General Director)
Establishment date: December 5, 1897
Number of members: 26,000
Seat : Vienna
Website: www.akm.at

The AKM Authors, Composers and Music Publishers registered cooperative with limited liability , formerly a state-approved society of authors, composers and music publishers , is a collecting society , which in Austria the rights of the public performance, the broadcasting rights as well as the rights of the supply of authors, composers, and Represents publishers of musical works who are members of her or another (foreign) collecting society.

tasks

The AKM grants organizers, broadcasting companies and other providers licenses for the public performance or broadcast / provision of copyrighted music in return for payment and distributes this in full to its members after deduction of administrative expenses or to their members under reciprocal agreements via foreign collecting societies; In the performance area, the AKM also grants the usage permit for other collecting societies ( Literar-Mechana , LSG ). The billing of the royalties to the authors takes place on the basis of the legal regulations, the statute and the billing rules created by AKM. The AKM has no profit.

Its sister company Austro Mechana represents the copyrighted rights of use for mechanical reproduction and distribution vis-à-vis the sound recording industry, the video and film industry, the empty cassette industry, radio and television.

membership

Admission as a royalty beneficiary takes place upon application. Composers, lyricists, arrangers and publishers are recorded if at least one work in which the applicant is involved has been publicly performed, broadcast, used online or published on a commercially available sound carrier within the past or current year. A one-time membership fee is payable upon admission. The AKM is open to new members, regardless of nationality or place of residence.

structure

The AKM is the largest copyright society in Austria and is organized as a private cooperative . The statutory auditing association (revision association) is the Austrian cooperative association (Schulze-Delitzsch). The company is based in Vienna and there is an office in every provincial capital. The most important organs of the AKM are:

General meeting of members

The highest body of the AKM consists of all ordinary members, that is, those entitled to royalties who, after reaching a minimum royalty income, became members of the cooperative upon application. Every member of the cooperative is a member of either the composers ', lyricists or music publishers' curia.

An annual meeting of those entitled to royalties takes place to represent the non-ordinary members. These elect delegates from their ranks who take part in the general assembly of members.

Board

According to the statutes of the AKM, the board of directors and, on its behalf, the general director. It is made up of four members each of the lyricists, composers and music publishers, the term of office is five years.

Supervisory board

The controlling body of the AKM consists of two members each of the lyricists, composers and music publishers with a five-year term of office.

history

AKM was founded in 1897 and is therefore (after the French SACEM ) the second oldest collecting society in Europe. It is a member of GESAC , the European umbrella association of copyright societies and the international umbrella association CISAC .

The history of AKM is closely linked to the development of copyright law . The founding efforts began shortly after the Copyright Act 1895 was passed . Some composers, authors and music publishers immediately recognized very clearly that the individual enforcement of payment claims for the “concert-like” public performance of their musical works would not be possible in practice for the individual entitled. The constituent general assembly of the cooperative took place on October 17, 1897.

The aim and purpose of the AKM according to its 1st statute was primarily to safeguard the material interests of its members, i.e. to ensure that the organizers pay the society an appropriate performance fee for the use of the protected musical works, which they - according to the use of works - distributed to their members. From the beginning, the society saw it as its task to promote the professional interests of its members and to provide for old age and survivors' pensions and financial support in emergencies.

After its founding, the AKM was initially challenged to provide educational work for the organizers of musical performances. The number of members of the musical authors and publishers grew steadily and rapidly, as of July 1, 1901, all known and famous composers and music lyricists (or their legal successors) gathered: Johann Strauss (son) , Franz Lehár , Franz von Suppè , Victor Léon , Carl Michael Ziehrer , Eduard Kremser , the " Schrammel Brothers ", Wilhelm Kienzl , Siegfried Wagner, Robert Lienau , Richard Heuberger , Gustav Mahler , Bedřich Smetana , Carl Millöcker , Engelbert Humperdinck , Carl Zeller , Ignaz Brüll , Richard Genée , Carl Goldmark , Josef Hellmesberger , Paul Lincke , Karl Lindau , Oscar Straus , Josef Bayer , Charles Weinberger , Viktor Keldorfer , and many more. What started with 227 members in 1898 is now an association with more than 23,000 members.

In 1898 the first reciprocity agreement was signed with SACEM . This enabled the organizers in Austria to be granted permission to perform foreign repertoire, while at the same time ensuring that the AKM was able to pay its members royalties for the performance of their works abroad.

In 1920 Austria joined the Berne Convention for the Protection of Works of Literature and Art, a wish of the AKM that it had repeatedly vigorously represented to the Ministry of Justice. Their persistent struggle to extend the term of protection from 30 to 50 years was a success in 1933.

In 1936, a new copyright law and the collecting societies law were passed; this was based on the collective rights management of the AKM, which has proven its worth in practice, and created a legal basis for the emergence of further collecting societies in other areas of art.

As a result of the annexation of Austria to the German Reich , AKM was dissolved in 1938, the company AKM was deleted from the commercial register and its assets were transferred to the Reich German collecting society STAGMA, which now extended its activities to the Ostmark . The AKM membership list from 1937 was synonymous with the directory of Austrian composers, lyricists and publishers and was used in 1939 to identify persons of Jewish descent with a red pencil. Some of the royalties incurred were no longer paid out.

President of the AKM until 1938:

The "new" AKM

In 1945, for legal reasons, AKM could not simply revive, but had to be re-established; the constituent general assembly took place on August 8, 1945. The next few years were all about development work. The efforts were soon crowned with success and income from home and abroad increased considerably. On the whole, the restoration after the war was less thorny than its foundation, even if the changes and expansions of the possible uses of musical works resulting from the increasingly rapid development of technical progress - such as B. The emergence of television broadcasts, broadcast or retransmission via cable, satellite broadcast, Internet - which repeatedly challenges AKM to be particularly active.

AKM presidents since 1945 were:

General directors were u. a .:

  • 1976–1995: Ernst Huemer
  • 1995-2006: Manfred Brunner
  • 2006– today: Gernot Graninger

Austro Mechana has been a subsidiary of AKM since June 10, 2013.

At the end of October 2014, the AKM handed over the previously never systematically recorded archive of around 50,000 sheet music by the composers it represented to the library of the Anton Bruckner Private University . The collection documents almost completely Austrian music production since 1897, and it also includes numerous sheet music from German, Czech and Italian music from the interwar period.

Social and cultural support

The AKM feels committed to social and cultural values, it provides social benefits to members and promotes Austrian music creation. Funding takes place in accordance with the statutes via a so-called social and cultural deduction, the use of funds takes place according to fixed rules. For the field of cultural promotion, AKM has a subsidiary, the Society for the Promotion of Austrian Music (GFÖM), while the subsidiary austro mechana also grants art and culture funding. The social area is covered by AQUAS - old age quotas and other social benefits GmbH.

See also

  • GEMA (Society for Musical Performance and Mechanical Reproduction Rights, Germany)
  • SUISA (Cooperative of the authors and publishers of music, Switzerland)
  • GFÖM
  • Radio quota

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.akm.at/wp-content/uploads/downloads/Statut_AKM.pdf
  2. ↑ (Association news.). In:  Wiener Zeitung , October 17, 1897, p. 4 (online at ANNO ). The constituent general assembly of the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Vienna takes place on Sunday 17th of December. M., in the morning at 10 a.m. in the lecture hall of the Scientific Club, 1st district, Eschenbachgasse No. 9.Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz
  3. ↑ For the protection of intellectual property .. In:  Neues Wiener Journal , October 17, 1897, p. 8 (online at ANNO ). Recently a new association has been formed in Vienna, which cannot be underestimated for the literary and artistic circles in Austria, provided that the management of the association is purposeful and equipped with the necessary energy. The title of the new association is: "Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers".Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwj
  4. ^ The Authors' Association in Vienna. In:  Signals for the Musical World , year 1897, issue 49/1897, pp. 769–770 (online at ANNO ). A society of authors, composers and music publishers has formed in Vienna. A few days ago the constituent general assembly of the above-mentioned association took place in the hall of the scientific club, which pursues the purpose of practically exploiting those rights and advantages which the new Austrian copyright law grants authors and composers.Template: ANNO / Maintenance / smw
  5. ↑ Explanatory remarks on the 1936 government bill
  6. ^ Archives of the Republic, 04, StiKo Wien, 37-C1 VII
  7. ↑ a b c Hartmut Krones: The end of the "old" AKM (March 1938), the founding of the "new" AKM (June 1945) and the consequences . Self-published by AKM, Vienna 2014.
  8. ^ Wiener Stadt-Bibliothek, Sign. 91314 A; Directory with Stagma stamp as of 10./II.39
  9. ↑ http://www.wienbibliothek.at/bestaende-sammlungen/objekte-monats/objekte-monats-2012/objekt-monats-maerz-2012-judenspiegel-akm
  10. ↑ Uwe Harten : Huemer, Ernst. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7001-3044-9 .
  11. ↑ AKM information edition 2/2013
  12. ↑ Bruckner University takes over AKM notes. On ooe ORF.at. Retrieved on July 22, 2018.
    "Takeover of the AKM sheet music archive by the Anton Bruckner Private University" Press conference on December 9, 2014. Retrieved on July 22, 2018. (PDF; 118 kB)

Remarks

  1. ^ The authors' society. Constituent General Assembly. (Original report by "Extrapost") .. In:  Extrapost , October 18, 1897, p. 4 (online at ANNO ). Yesterday morning an association was founded in the hall of the scientific association, which has set itself the task of finally safeguarding the business interests of authors, composers and music publishers after the rights theoretically obtained two years ago by the copyright law. It must be strange that people from such different spheres of interest, such as authors and publishers, form a common association; there has been a violent aversion between these two professional classes for a long time, because one party always considers itself defeated. At yesterday's meeting, however, there was complete agreement, only a few seemingly harmless skirmishes revealed to the not entirely uninitiated observer that this association brought with it an opposition when it was founded, which should form the numerical majority, and the many concessions made by the publishers to it Non-official opposition show serious efforts to make the existence of the association possible and secure. The association currently has 170 members, but only 71 of them attended yesterday's meeting. You also saw two women, Josefine and Johanna Fahrbach, several military bandmasters in uniform and pretty much the whole world of music writing. The chairman, Mr. Adolf Robitschek, greeted those who appeared in a short speech, had the attendance list established and gave the floor to the speaker, publisher Josef Weinberger. He explains that the invitation to this constituent general assembly only shows the dry business idea on which the company is initially based. But not this alone, but a number of higher points of view, which up to now no opportunity to explain, have awakened the founding idea. It is widely believed that a number of publishers have come together here to get royalties, but this is demonstrably far removed from the proponents. The ideal common interests should be pursued in the same way as business interests. The need for humanity is taken into account by pension provision and support, and as far as the business side is concerned, the publishers have dropped many points of their customary law in order to convince the composers of their friendly feelings. Thus, as a special novelty, § 24 of the statutes is cited, which - which no society has done yet - describes the author's share as not for sale. This is to prevent all unclean practices and to protect the author from the danger that his sudden distress will be exploited to unscrupulous price pressure of his work. But the publishers want to make one more concession. They want to forego keeping the entire performance bill for everything that has appeared so far, and are willing to give the composer the performance share for works that have already appeared earlier. (Bravo!) Mr. Weinberger now turns to the main task of the association. For fifty years nothing had been done in literary legislation, until in 1895 an innovation arose through the Copyright Act, which was received with great enthusiasm, but had little success in practice. Section 24 of this law protected the performance, i.e. H. the stipulation that for a song, piece of music, etc., that has been performed, be it in the theater, concert hall or in clubs, the author is to be paid a share. Of course, even a halfway productive sound poet was no longer able to uphold his rights, since control became impossible for him, and - where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge either! So there was the money on the street! This was also where the founding idea began, and the new association proved to be an unavoidable necessity. He has to take over the supervision and demand of the performance share claim and thereby both the author and the publisher have to accrue a new rent, which is of importance for the whole publishing industry, even if part of the fee goes into the coffers of the association. The Societé des auteurs in Paris appeared as a model for founding such an association. The consultant was there and carefully studied its facilities. The Societé exercises its control in such a way that every piece performed is measured according to certain units of value. So the whole program of a concert z. B. appraised, and publisher and author get their share according to these units of value, which of course not the musician but the entrepreneur has to pay. Let us serve as an example that Austrian members of the Societé are very satisfied, Capellmeister Ziehrer has 1,800 francs in a quarter of a year. get, while Mrs. Fahrbach, the widow after Philipp Fahrbach jun. In spite of a considerable decrease in their share claims, in the last year 4,000 francs. got. However, the Societe has decided to only accept members of those countries which practice reciprocity . Much depends on the establishment in Vienna, as analog clubs would then emerge in Germany (Leipzig) and Switzerland. The present statutes are based on those of the Societé des auteurs. Here the speaker closes the presentation to a non-stop applause and reads the statutes according to their paragraphs. Every paragraph is immediately followed by the debate, in which Messrs Wilhelm Ascher, Dr. Felix, IP Gotthard, Richard Heuberger, Eduard Kremser, Victor Leon, Richard Lewy, Professor Löwenstamm, Dr. Marschner, Carl Millöcker, Adolf Müller and Kratochwill. In these debates the impending mutual ( PAGE 5 ) jealousies were quietly hinted at. A livelier tone was used, especially where it was a question of fees or the filling of directions. The speaker took the Curien point of view with all the energy that the publishers are numerically in the minority, but he let it shine through - although only very weakly, but easily understandable - that they are not materially. We must praise Mr. Richard Lewy, who regularly apologized: “I am also a publisher”, but with sincere zeal represented the cause of the authors wherever it seemed fair to him. It is noteworthy that the statutes were for the most part adopted with insignificant changes, only § 11, which consists of six publishers and six composers or authors (the authors consistently refer to the lyricists in the present statutes), was changed to include four publishers , four authors and four composers are to be chosen. Z 29, which stipulated that the president must be a publisher and the vice-president a compouist, has also been modified so that the choice is free. After a lengthy break, during which scrutiny took place , the election result was announced. The same reads: President Josef Weinberger, Vice President Eduard Kremser , Secretary Victor Leon , Treasurer Vincenz Kratochwill, Direction Members Adolf Robitschek , Bernhard Herzmansky , Adolf Müller , Ignaz Brüll , Richard Heuberger , Heinrich Bohrmann-Riegen, Julius Horst and ( Pius ) Freiherr v. Meysenbug (rival). Then five gentlemen from this Directions Council were elected to the arbitration tribunal, namely the gentlemen: Herzmansky, Kratochwill, Müller, Kremser and Horst. After four hours, the meeting closed after 2 p.m.Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wmj






  2. ^ Association news. The battle for the royalty. In:  Neue Freie Presse , December 22, 1897, p. 7 (online at ANNO ). As is known, a "Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers" has been formed in Vienna based on the model of the Parisian Societé des Auteurs et Compositeurs dramatiques, which collects royalties on all public performances of sound works by its members on the basis of the law of December 26, 1895 becomes. The company began its activities on January 1st, 1898 and in the last few months it has sent a letter to the owners of all those Viennese establishments in which concerts, balls etc. are held regularly or at times, in which they announce the opening of their business and draws attention to the fact that from January 1st, a public performance of works by its members is only permitted if the establishment owner concerned has paid a royalty to the company for this. At the instigation of a committee consisting of Messrs. Kuhn, Hopfner sen., Stalehner and Weigl, a meeting of establishment owners, restaurateurs and innkeepers took place yesterday in Hopfner's restoration "zur golden pear" in Mariahilf, which was very numerous. and which had the purpose of taking a position on this matter. Mr. Kuhn ("Golden Rose", Nussdorf) set out in a lengthy, in-depth discussion the purpose of the authors' society, presented in a drastic manner the manifold burdens of the catering trade and explained how the entertainment establishments in particular suffer from the unfavorable conditions of the time would have. ( The ) speaker finally discussed the legal side of the question and expressed the view that it was not the landlords but the band masters who had to pay the royalties demanded by the company. The next speaker, Restaurateur Pfalz (Gartenbau-Gesellschaft), says: We pay for the music, and this certainly includes the program that puts it on. Let us not engage in any negotiations with society; she should complain to us. - The meeting decided to elect a provisional committee for the establishment of a club of the Viennese establishment owners and at the same time to instruct this committee to get in touch with a legal friend on the subject of the authors' society and to study the question of whether the innkeepers should Payment of a bonus are required at all. In addition, it was decided in solidarity that from January 1st onwards, only those music pieces may be performed in all locations that are royalty-free, but otherwise not pay any royalties and that it depends on the lawsuit of the authors' society. The gentlemen were elected to the aforementioned committee: Joseph Schneider (chairman), Gschwandner, Hamberger, Hopfner sen., Kuhn, Pfalz, Rappel, Rudolph Schneider, Karl Stalehner and Weigl. Little chronicle. The battle for the royalty. In:  Neue Freie Presse , December 23, 1897, p. 6 (online at ANNO ). In the Morgenblatte we reported on the beginning of a struggle between the owners of the Vienna Concert Etablissements on the one hand and the newly founded society of authors, composers and music publishers on the other. From January 1st, on the basis of the law of December 26th, 1895, which safeguards the protection of intellectual property in a far more emphatic manner than before, the Society wants to levy a royalty for the public performance of every musical work of its members, which, if only after Counting cruisers, especially for the large establishments, adds up to many hundreds of guilders in the course of a year. In a meeting of the establishment owners held the day before yesterday, a number of the best-known Viennese landlords and restaurateurs, including Messrs. Kuhn, Pfalz, Tökes, Hopfner senior, Hamberger, Strobl, Joseph Schneider, Rudolph Schneider, Stalehner, Gschwandner, Weigl, Rappel and others, gave a presentation . A. a description of the conditions in the Viennese innkeeping trade, which was in no way appropriate to have a new tax, as which the royalty claim for the landlords represented, so easily passed on to them. On the other hand, the President of the Authors' Society, Mr. Verleger Weinberger, who briefly attended the meeting, had the opportunity to point out the sad situation of numerous Austrian composers who, although their works enjoy great popularity, with their families hunger and hardship Suffer. The sense of equity demands that if the concert entrepreneur draws profit, the public draws pleasure from these works, but the creator of them must also enjoy a corresponding material advantage from them. None of the innkeepers disagreed with the fairness of this view, but they take the point of view that the Capellmeister and, in the case of military music, the music administration of the regiment concerned, by accepting the payment, are also obliged to deliver the concert, so to speak, completely, and not just for sheet music and music Instruments, but also to take care of the right to perform, since the Capellmeister puts together the program of his concerts quite independently and does not allow the landlord to dictate anything in this direction. This view of the state of affairs again meets with the understandable and lively resistance of the Capellmeister, who almost without exception are also composers and therefore have a personal interest in collecting royalties. One is faced with an interesting legal question, which will be decided all the sooner when the landlords have made the binding decision not to pay royalties and rather to be sued. It is all the more obvious that the company does not deviate from its point of view as it was founded ad hoc. The public itself will also be drawn into the dispute about the royalty insofar as the establishment owners have made the further resolution to influence the composition of the concert programs directly and in the direction that only royalty-free music creations, so mostly works by deceased composers are allowed to be performed. So in the near future you will hear a lot of Lanner , Strauss's father , ( Karl ) Morelli, ( Johann ) Drahanek, Gungl and a great many musicians in Vienna - if the Capellmeister is able to get the necessary, no longer available sheet music so quickly are. Whether the public will enjoy such “remembrance” concerts is finally a further question in this complex of questions, as Mr. Gschwandner aptly emphasized at the aforementioned discussion.Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp


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