I'm pissed, mad, angry! I just returned from SAZAS – a Slovenian society of composers, authors and publishers. SAZAS was supposed to be in charge of collecting copyright payments in the name of Slovenian authors from radio and TV stations, event organizers, club owners etc. All of those are obliged to pay a fee for everytime they play one of my tracks and then SAZAS has to wire the money to me as an author and a copyright owner. Of course this is not an easy job as my tracks are played all over the world, but they have a pretty solid network of similar societies around the world.
The problem I need YOUR help with, is the clasification of electronic music. Smart asses at SAZAS treat techno as some third class any-one-can-do music. Therefore Slovenian electronic producers are treated differently then pop, rock and other artists, who apparently produce better and harder to make tracks. What does this mean? It means that those artists make tens of thousands of euros, while me and my fellow producers don't even get enough for a couple of decent dinners.
Don't get me wrong – it's not about the money, it's about principles. I earn my money elsewhere and definitely not from copyrights, but I just cannot agree with mistreating great and popular music like techno! Who are they to tell us that techno is inferior to pop, rock and other genres of music?!
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP ME AND OTHER ELECTRONIC PRODUCERS IN SLOVENIA?
Help me achieve a proper treatment for our music. Send angry e-mails to sazassazas.org and tell them your opinion about their unfair classification. The goal is 10.000 e-mails from fans all over the world. If you don't know what to write, put »Be fair!« in the subject line and »I disagree with your clasification of electronic music. I as a fan demand that you treat electronic music the same way you treat rock, pop and other genres!«. Of course it's nothing wrong with being creative.
Be sure I will let you know if our guerilla action will succeed and I promise you I won't forget your help. After all when (or if) SAZAS will change their stupid policy, you will have some credit for this. And that's something, isn't it?