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This is our setup

GEMA uniters the creators of musical works, i.e. composers and lyricists, as well as music publishers under its roof. As a commercial association, we act as the trustee of our members.

We represent their claims to remuneration on a global level whenever their works are used. It’s not just more than 95,000 GEMA members benefit from this activity but almost two million music creators from all over the world.  The basis for this are representation agreements with collective management organisations from other countries.

Who sets the tone at GEMA? Its members, of course!

Once a year, the GEMA General Assembly is held. As the highest governing body, it may resolve changes to the statutes or the Deed of Assignment. It also elects a Supervisory Board every three years.

The GEMA distribution plan who is also set at the General Assembly, is also of particular importance. This plan governs in detail how licensing income is paid out to creators and publishers.

All GEMA members are represented in the General Assembly: About 5,000 full members are entitled to vote, whereas 64 elected delegates represent approximately 90,000 associate members. All the details on associate and full members are summarised in our information leaflet Forms of GEMA membership.

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The central bodies and committees of the association

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General Assembly

The General Assembly is the highest governing body at GEMA. It is only this body that may pass important resolutions such as changes to the statutes or the GEMA distribution plan.


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Delegates

Delegates represent the associate GEMA members in the annual General Assembly. They stand up for their interests and can vote on internal rules.

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Supervisory Board

Among the tasks of the Supervisory Board are the appointment, dismissal and supervision of the Managing Committee. It consists of GEMA members with all three professional categories represented.


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Managing Committee

The Managing Committee runs the daily business at GEMA. It is obliged to present the Supervisory Board and the General Assembly with an annual report.



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Our subsidiaries

GEMA has founded or acquired various subsidiaries which offer special services in the rights management sector. They include ARESA (Anglo-American Rights European Service Agency), iSYS Software GmbH, IT4IPM IT for Intellectual Property Management, SOLAR Music Rights Management Ltd, ZPÜ (Central Organisation for Private Copying Rights) and deecoob.

More about subsidiaries
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Subsidiaries

GEMA has founded or acquired various subsidiaries which offer special services in the rights management sector. 

ARESA (Anglo-American Rights European Service Agency)

ARESA is a 100% GEMA subsidiary, which has been responsible for central licensing of mechanical rights for Anglo-American repertoire of BMG Rights Management for online and mobile sectors in the European Economic Area and additionally specified countries since 01/07/2012. ARESA GmbH was founded as a result of the online recommendation of the European Commission dated 18 October 2005.

The catalogues represented by the ARESA GmbH, among others Chrysalis, Bug, BMG, Cherry Lane, Famous, Virgin, Stage Three and Evergreen comprise several hundreds of thousands of works, such as works for artists like Adele, Aerosmith, The Black Eyed Peas, Black Sabbath, Blondie, Bruno Mars, David Bowie, Duffy, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Kings of Leon, Nirvana, OMD, One Direction, The Rolling Stones, Ryan Adams, Take That, Tears for Fears, ZZ Top and others.

CESARights (ZPÜ)

CESARights conducts the business of the ZPÜ (Central Office for Private Copyrights) as its core activity - without appearing to the outside world. This foundation forms the stable trunk and origin of the organisation. The ZPÜ is the oldest (founded in 1963) and, from an economic point of view, the most important form of co-operation between German collecting societies. The Zentralstelle für private Überspielungsrechte (ZPÜ) is an association of nine German collecting societies in the legal form of a partnership under civil law, whose corporate purpose is the assertion of claims for remuneration, information and notification for reproductions pursuant to Section 53 para. 1 - 2 and 60a - 60f UrhG of audio works and audiovisual works against manufacturers, importers and distributors of devices and storage media whose type is used alone or in combination with other devices, storage media or accessories to make such reproductions.
www.zpue.de

Data and information services

Over time, however, new needs have also emerged on the market. The demands of the affiliated collecting societies have changed. For this reason, CESARights now also offers associated and comprehensive data and information services, for example in terms of the distribution adjustments of the affiliated collecting societies.

Assertion of the claims of the German collecting societies under the UrhDaG

The current legal situation, in particular newly created remuneration claims against online platforms such as YouTube, but also other comparable service providers under the UrhDaG (Act on the Copyright Responsibility of Service Providers for the Sharing of Online Content), opens up new opportunities and prospects. As an authorised and ‘trusted’ partner of the association of collecting societies, CESARights takes a strong and far-reaching approach to these opportunities.

deecoob

The core business of decoob is to run automatic searches of the internet for public events where music is used. It uses a web crawling technology, an important instrument for collective music management organisations all over the world, to identify public performances. This is also because these are often announced and advertised online. One of the leading companies on the market, deecoob acts independently under the GEMA umbrella.

ICE

In 2015, ICE was founded as a joint licensing and processing hub of the three collective management organisations GEMA (Germany), PRS for Music (United Kingdom) and STIM (Sweden). The Joint Venture hosts the documentation of copyright, the licensing of digital music providers  and the processing of digital usage reports under its umbrella. With this integrated licensing and processing hub, GEMA, PRS for Music and STIM facilitate the handling of an ever-increasing data volume which are the result of a large number of individual music uses via digital music services.

Since 2016, ICE has been acting as a single source to offer music users the online repertoire of GEMA, PRS for Music and STIM throughout Europe. This means that digital music services acquire a trans-territorial licence for the overall repertoire of the three partners. ICE manages the rights when dealing with digital music services in the name of GEMA, PRS for Music and STIM. Processing the usage reports and the distribution is done at ICE for all three societies.  This way, creators and publishers benefit from a fair remuneration for the use of their works.

In the next step, the three partners collate their documentation i.e. the databases with their musical and audiovisual works.

iSYS

iSYS Software GmbH is headquartered in Munich and is a software and consulting company with more than twenty years’ experience specialising in processing software projects.

It develops individual software solutions and offers consulting services for the entire project environment. By designing, implementing, operating and maintaining IT solutions based on future-proof platforms and standards, iSYS increases the value and competitiveness of its customers and partners.

IT4IPM

In early July 2014, GEMA founded its IT division as a new company: IT4IPM. IT4IPM stands for “IT for Intellectual Property Management” and is intended to emphasise that IT solutions for collective management organisations and directly connected sectors such as publishers are offered by it. In addition to GEMA, it also serves international clients. IT4IPM is a GmbH with two offices, one in Munich, and one in Berlin, and its headquarters are in Munich. Managing Director is Andreas Stibi; GEMA is member of the Advisory Board of the GmbH.

SOLAR

SOLAR Music Rights Management Ltd manages the Anglo-American catalogues of Sony/ATV and EMI Music Publishing for online and mobile licences in the EU and other regions.

SoundAware

The SoundAware Group is an established provider of services for the recognition of music, events and media contents whose centrepiece is a market-leading music recognition technology (MRT). The sophisticated and high-quality monitoring technology delivers reliable results even from very short music fragments.

Zebralution

Zebralution was founded in 2004 as the first digital distributor for independent labels in Europe. The company currently markets more than 1,000 labels and audio books worldwide. 2018 Zebralution also founded subsidiary zebra-audio.net which is specialised in the distribution of podcasts. 

Memberships

As one of the largest authors’ societies for musical works in the world, GEMA is also involved at international level to protect and progress copyright. It is thus a member of GESAC (European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers) and CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), an international umbrella organisations of copyright societies in 108 countries. Furthermore, it is actively involved in BIEM (Bureau International des Sociétés gérant les Droits d'Enregistrement et de Reproduction Mécanique) and Fast Track (The Digital Copyright Network).

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CISAC

International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers

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GESAC

European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers

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BIEM

Bureau International des Sociétés gérant les Droits d'Enregistrement et de Reproduction Mécanique

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Get help – quickly!

If you need us, our help centre offers answers to your questions – it is quick and easy to use and accessible to you 24/7 – and there are no waiting times.

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