At this week's annual meeting of German composers and publishers, GEMA CEO Harald Heker renewed calls for digital platforms like YouTube to "finally be bound to pay authors a fair share of [proceeds] generated from the works of creators."
Heker also urged the 700-plus composers, lyricists and publishers attending the annual GEMA General Assembly to sign the pan-European "Make the Internet Fair" petition, which he said could "bolster up the politicians who are supporting a fair Copyright Directive in Brussels. The lobby of the large online platforms must be counterbalanced by the creatives in order to make the internet a fairer place."
GEMA represents the copyright of more than 72,000 composers, lyricists and music publishers in Germany, and more than two million copyright owners globally. Heker made sure to address the debate surrounding the industry's gender gap as well, saying, "at GEMA, we firmly believe that in the world of music, men and women should participate equally. I am therefore pleased that the provision in our statutes which has been resolved in the course of the Members' Assembly in 2017, by means of which GEMA aims to strengthen the share of women in its governing bodies, has already started to bear fruit."
The Supervisory Board of GEMA was elected for the next three years:
The composers elected Jörg Evers, Matthias Hornschuh, Micki Meuser, Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock, Dr Charlotte Seither and Dr Ralf Weigand as their representatives into the Supervisory Board as well as Prof. Dr Enjott Schneider and Alexander Zuckowski as deputies.
The lyricists will be represented until 2021 by Burkhard Brozat, Rudolf Müssig, Frank Ramond and Stefan Waggershausen at Supervisory Board level, with Tobias Künzel and Pe Werner acting as deputies.
The interests of the publishers will be represented in the Supervisory Board by Hans-Peter Malten, Michael Ohst, Dagmar Sikorski, Patrick Strauch and Dr Götz von Einem as well as by deputies Jörg Fukking and Diana Muñoz.