Spanish Copyright Society Raided For Embezzlement 80
esocid writes "Senior officials in Spain's Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE), the country's leading collection society for songwriters and composers, face embezzlement charges in the wake of a Friday raid on the organization's offices. Investigators say Jose Luis Rodriguez Neri, the head of an SGAE subsidiary called the Digital Society of Spanish Authors (SDAE), made payments for non-existent services to a contractor that then paid kickbacks to Neri and his associates. SGAE, the Spanish counterpart to American collecting societies like ASCAP and BMI, is known for its high fees and aggressive enforcement tactics. According to El País, 'the society has been often accused of exceeding its remit by going as far as to infiltrate private weddings to check whether fees had been paid for the music being played at the banquet.'"
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah I happen to live there.
A lot of things are shaped as known trends in the US. It goes from TV to pop culture to business plans, and I have been seeing those since I was a kid, specially in IT where the latest coding trend is the latest coding trend...in the US.
And, anyway, SGAE's "message" against piracy is about protecting culture. But who is buying that? With the spokesmen they have, it's obvious they are there for the money.
Also they are the people that made storage media much more expensive with their digital canon, making production more expensive for amateurs out of their "protection". Indie stuff is culture too. And we are not protected, at all.