FIM

International Federation of Musicians

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Africa

Regional conference on the capacity building of musicians’ unions in Africa

07.12.2012 Updated on 07.04.2018 Africa, Gender equality

Nairobi, 26 – 29 November 2012 — FIM and Swedish union SMF held a joint region­al con­fer­ence in Nairobi on the capac­i­ty build­ing of African musi­cians’ unions. The con­fer­ence was attend­ed by FIM President John Smith, and brought togeth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 16 African coun­tries, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as British soci­ety PPL. The Swedish Confederation LO-​TCO, which fund­ed the two FIM and SMF projects, was also represented.

A detailed assess­ment of work car­ried out over the past three years was pre­sent­ed and eval­u­at­ed. Tangible results have been mea­sured in all coun­tries where the two projects were involved: Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, Guinea, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Malawi and Sierra-​Leone. […]
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Artists’ peaceful protest march harshly repressed in Yaoundé (Cameroon)

18.11.2012 Updated on 16.03.2019 Africa, Freedom of expression, Intellectual property, International solidarity

Anne-Marie Nzié

In agree­ment with right hold­ers (per­form­ers, authors and com­posers), the Cameroonian Government recent­ly decid­ed the cre­ation of a spe­cial deposit account allow­ing copy­right users to pay roy­al­ties before the such roy­al­ties are trans­ferred to the duly autho­rized col­lec­tive man­age­ment organisations.

Meanwhile, the Port of Douala, which had so far been refus­ing to pro­ceed to any pay­ment for the use of copy­right and neigh­bor­ing rights, sud­den­ly decid­ed to send those pay­ments to the for­mer man­age­ment of the Cameroon Music Corporation, which is no longer legal­ly autho­rized to col­lect these monies. In protest against this vio­la­tion of the Government’s deci­sions, the Musicians Trade Union of Cameroon (SYCAMU) duly informed the author­i­ties about its inten­tion to demon­strate. […]
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Senegalese artists demand fairer treatment in requests for visas for France

20.07.2012 Updated on 12.04.2015 Africa, Cultural policies, Public policies

On the 12 July, the entire artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty of Senegal met in Dakar’s Douta Seck Culture Centre to denounce France’s pol­i­cy in deal­ing with requests for visas from Senegalese artists. 

For some months now, the French Consulate in Dakar has been demand­ing that artists, includ­ing the most respect­ed, present a cer­tifi­cate from Senegal’s Ministry of Culture with their request for a visa. This pro­ce­dure, which amounts to request­ing autho­ri­sa­tion from the Senegalese gov­ern­ment for leav­ing one’s own coun­try, is con­sid­ered as point­less, humil­i­at­ing for Senegalese artists and embar­rass­ing for the Minister of Culture – him­self a renowned artist.

The event esca­lat­ed fol­low­ing the rejec­tion of the visa request from Professor Oumar Sankharé, a lit­er­ary fig­ure in the coun­try. […]
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Dakar, 9 – 13 July 2012 | AMS capacity-​building seminar

19.07.2012 Updated on 08.11.2015 Africa

The sem­i­nar took place with­in the frame­work of the FIM-​SMF-​LOTCO pro­gramme for capac­i­ty build­ing of African musi­cians’ unions. In par­tic­u­lar, it aimed at draw­ing up an assess­ment of work com­plet­ed since 2009, when the pre­vi­ous work­shop took place, but also, and above all, out­lin­ing future per­spec­tives for AMS.

A whole day was devot­ed to social pro­tec­tion and musi­cians’ legal sta­tus. A strat­e­gy for updat­ing sta­tus­es was adopt­ed. A cam­paign for col­lect­ing mem­ber­ship fees will be organ­ised and the General Assembly take place before the end of 2012.

Priority will be giv­en to 

  • Implementing the law estab­lish­ing relat­ed rights and trans­form­ing the BSDA into a civ­il soci­ety (AMS has already devot­ed a lot of work to this issue);
  • Co-​operation between AMS, sec­tor play­ers and gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions for set­ting up a pro­fes­sion­al sta­tus found­ed on salaried sta­tus, in line with labour code provisions;
  • Implementing sec­to­r­i­al social dialogue;
  • Conceiving a mutu­al­ist scheme for cov­er­ing cer­tain health­care risks.
 […]
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Piracy – Orange and MTN (Cameroon) forced to toe the line after FIM steps in

27.03.2012 Updated on 25.08.2015 Africa, Intellectual property, International solidarity

MTNOrange

The Cameroon gov­ern­ment has just tak­en a deter­min­ing stance in the affair which brought music righthold­ers and Orange and MTN tele­com oper­a­tors into con­flict, by forc­ing both oper­a­tors to respect copy­right and relat­ed rights legislation.

For years, these two com­pa­nies had indulged in pira­cy by sell­ing pro­tect­ed record­ings to their cus­tomers, via down­load­ing or stream­ing, with­out autho­ri­sa­tion from righthold­ers and with­out pay­ing anything.

The deci­sion will enable Cameroon musi­cians to receive at last the rev­enue to which they are entitled

The inter­na­tion­al protest cam­paign insti­gat­ed by FIM and its mem­bers fol­low­ing the call of the Cameroon Musicians’ Union SYCAMU con­vinced the Cameroon pres­i­den­cy of the need to bring par­ties to the nego­ti­at­ing table to put an end to the cri­sis. […]
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FIM workshop in Accra (Ghana), 14 – 16 March 2012

26.03.2012 Updated on 07.04.2018 Africa, Gender equality

Accra

A FIM nation­al work­shop took place in Accra with­in the scope of the region­al pro­gramme for union train­ing backed by the Swedish con­fed­er­a­tion LO-​TCO, with the sup­port and par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Swedish Musicians’ Union (SMF). The main objec­tive was to fol­low up rec­om­men­da­tions adopt­ed in 2009 dur­ing a pre­vi­ous work­shop:
 — Policy pri­or­i­ties defined by the union;
 — Gender equal­i­ty in the sec­tor of music and union author­i­ties;
 — Good man­age­ment, trans­paren­cy and finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty;
 — Social dia­logue and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing;
 — Intellectual prop­er­ty and col­lec­tive man­age­ment;
 — Networks and fund-​raising;
 — Services to mem­bers and communication.

In par­tic­u­lar, the work­shop was attend­ed by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Ministry of Culture, an ILO rep­re­sen­ta­tive and sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Ghana Trade Union Congress (TUC).

Africa | Regional Intellectual Property Forum

13.01.2012 Updated on 05.07.2019 Africa, Intellectual property

Cape Town, 3 – 5 April, 2012. In coop­er­a­tion with WIPO, ARIPO and OAPI, the gov­ern­ments of South Africa, the United States of America, Japan and France are organ­is­ing a region­al forum in Cape Town, South Africa, on intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty as a fac­tor for eco­nom­ic growth via inno­va­tion, com­merce and investments.

Between 600 and 800 par­tic­i­pants are expect­ed, includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of righthold­ers of lit­er­ary and artis­tic copy­right, musi­cians in par­tic­u­lar. At the request of organ­is­ers, FIM has sug­gest­ed issues for pan­els and speak­ers from African musi­cians’ unions. Information on this event is avail­able on: www​.cldp​.doc​.gov.

Union training workshop in Ouagadougou

20.12.2011 Updated on 07.02.2017 Africa

FIM-AF logo

FIM organ­ised a nation­al union train­ing work­shop in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) from the 7 to 10 September 2011, with­in the frame­work of its African pro­gramme for union train­ing and with the back­ing of Swedish unions SMF and LO-​TCO.

The work­shop attract­ed 25 union mem­bers from all coun­tries, the major­i­ty of whom under 40, addressed in-​depth the most fun­da­men­tal issues of the life of a union and a pro­fes­sion­al musi­cian in a coun­try where music is con­sid­ered by the pub­lic more as enter­tain­ment than as a real indus­try gen­er­at­ing jobs and revenue.

The work­shop was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to raise aware­ness of the active role that SYNAM and its mem­bers can play, both in defin­ing the country’s cul­tur­al pol­i­cy and improv­ing the way it oper­ates itself.

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