Performers who are members are entitled to vote at General Assemblies, thereby participating in the Spedidam’s internal governance. They may also be candidates for election to the Board of Directors, the Supervisory Committee and the Grants Committee.
Spedidam: the organisation that has been defending performers' rights since 1959
Founded in 1959 by five musical performers, Spedidam is a performer’s collective management organisation. Spedidam manages and enforces performers’ neighbouring rights.
Why was Spedidam created ?
With the rise of recording technology, recorded music began to threaten performers’ livelihoods in the late 1920s. In the 1950s, this transition gained momentum: recorded services started to be used extensively in public places (bars, discotheques, cinemas, etc.) rather than live performances, thereby putting at risk the careers of many musicians.
In response to these developments, Spedidam was founded so that artists could:
- Exercise control over the secondary use of their recorded performances.
- Receive additional remuneration for these secondary uses (broadcasting in shows, use in films, etc.).
Fighting for recognition of performers' neighbouring rights
Spedidam worked to get « performers’ rights » recognised, just as rights were granted to authors during the French Revolution two centuries earlier. These rights were initially recognised in case law, allowing Spedidam to collect and distribute remunerations to performers. The 1985 law was passed unanimously by the French National Assembly and Senate and codified in 1992 in the French Intellectual Property Code, thus confirming this principle and establishing so-called neighbouring rights to authors’ rights.
