A recording may not be used without the prior permission of each person who has participated and who has a copyright or neighbouring right on the recording. But who are these people? How would it be possible to contact them all ? How can an artist know who uses his recordings? Even if they were able to find each other, how could they agree on an adequate compensation?

This is where the collective management comes in, to work on good agreements and to play the role of intermediary. Performing artists refer to PlayRight for this. The society :

• Is managed by the artists themselves
• Defends their rights and deducts their administration costs
• Ensures that artists receive their share of the success of a recording
• Manages the administration and ensures an efficient payment
• Does not negotiate rates with users, but with their federations and the competent minister.

Which collective management company should you join?

In Belgium there are various management companies that see to the management, collection and distribution of copyright and neighbouring rights.

• PlayRight: neighbouring rights of performing artists
• Simim/imagia: neighbouring rights of music and video clip producers
• Sabam: copyright of authors, composers and publishers.

So, in practice, you may need to join all three companies if you, as an artist, also compose and/or write texts, perform your own compositions and after all that, put your producer’s cap on and record these performances and see to their exploitation.

Aside from these three, there are numerous other management companies in Belgium, albeit for other categories of right holders, in sectors other than the music or audiovisual industries.