If during the most classic of summer bonfires on the beach, hug a guitar and begin to sing Wish you were here together with another ten friends, you are breaking the law. Unless you have paid SIAE ahead of time. Dura lex, sed lex. If you then invite that dozens of friends of the bonfire to your home for dinner and you are so "eccentric" to decide to watch simultaneously the video Wish you were here (you are really fixed...) on youtube, everyone from just smartphone, nobody has to pay SIAE, because Google, owner of Youtube, is already paying for you. In addition, with the purchase of the smartphone, you have contributed to the payment of the SIAE through the implicit purchase of the so-called license for the private copy, which covers the possibility of keeping a copy digital of the original support purchased. In other words, you can legally convert the regularly purchased Pink Floyd album into mp3s and listen to it on your smartphone. The sale of the license for the potential private copy yields about 120 million euro annually to the SIAE. Few change... However, since you are all there at home, if you propose more reasonably to watch that same video from a single source, for example from your notebook, hopes that you do not come knocking a SIAE inspector...


Apart from apparent, exaggerated and hypothetical situations, SIAE has become a real protagonist of singular episodes due to the intransigence in the application of the law. In 2006 he made a fine of 205 euros to 14 children of Chernobyl for copyright infringement, guilty of having sung a song in Belarusian on a basis amplified by small PC speakers connected to a notebook, in the course of the improvised farewell show to thank the families that had hosted them throughout the month of August between Noci and Martina Franca, in Puglia. In 2009, the over 80s of the Retired and Senior Circle of Predazzo, in Trentino-Alto Adige, were able to deliver a bill of 41 euros for singing mountain songs accompanied by an accordion during one of their parties. In 2016, in the oratory of a parish of Monza, in Lombardy, the Tu con noi association that deals with assistance for the disabled, was fined 268 euros for spreading music and dancing disabled, relatives and volunteers, without any profit. I remember that in the early 2000s the peloritan association Messinese Energy, despite having received the written and signed permission of the author's own hand of the documentary that would have projected into a free cultural event, was forced to pay the SIAE.


The main animation activity in our Agricamping Sophia is the jam session, which is the casual find, typically jazzy, of musicians who agreed chord round or a standard improvise in turn of solos or extemporaneous variations to the theme. However, in tendentially rock, as in our case, we almost always find cover protected by SIAE. And if an inspector of the SIAE finds out to play Wish you were here, it becomes a bit 'complicated to convince him to be the authors... The guys who work at the campsite are almost all musicians and in the evening, with the excuse animation, in fact we relax a bit 'making a good sound together. If then some guests want to participate, the situation becomes even more pleasant and interesting. Well: the SIAE does not have a category that deals with a musical event, occasional, variable, of this type. The most practical and convenient (but not the cheapest), in this case, if you have to deal with a smart enough agent that instead of inquisire know well to advise and understand, is to be issued a seasonal karaoke license.
In the firm belief that copyright should be protected, we are of the opinion that certain situations would require a more flexible response and that very often, especially in the presence of a free event, there is a disproportionate of the requested tariff. In any case, or if you are playing a piece protected by the SIAE or not protected by SIAE you pass anyway, because it plays a double role: private and public. On the one hand protects the copyrights, on the other hand collects for the State the tax authorities on the shows and the possible entertainment tax. The ISI, or the tax on entertainment, you pay substantially if you mainly dance or play for a fee (table football, for example). If you make live music or sing, you do not pay the ISI. For further information, please refer to the convention between Revenue Agency and the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers


The world of music has changed extremely since the last century. The listening channels have changed radically: the possession of physical support is now almost exclusively the prerogative of a few enthusiasts. Anyone with a small fee can now self-produce their own music and publish it for free on digital platforms such as jamando with license creative commons , which is not in fact an effective protection from the legal point of view, but an instrument to eventually prove the paternity of his work. There are more and more youtuber that emerge with likes and visualizations thanks to their talent and a good production (or just to please thousands of youtube users), compared to most of the artists from talent show that vanish like meteors after a short time. Today an emerging artist seeks visibility and ease of public access to their music. The SIAE seems to have a structure that is too anachronistic and reluctant to change to meet the needs of the new music scene: it should begin first of all regulating the terminology used in the issue of licenses and permits, which in 2018 borders on the ridicule and stop the inquisitorial behavior of certain agents they ask you if during the concert the audience could dance... Not surprisingly from 2018 Soundreef, an Anglo-Italian company founded in 2011, is beginning to undermine the monopoly actually enjoyed by SIAE < / strong>, with the approval of the State, in the Italian copyright market. However, Soundreef, a company for profit, is forced to entrust the collection of the rights of its affiliates to the non-profit association LEA, thus circumventing the new law Italian which, under European pressure (Barnier directive), opens the market for the protection of copyrights only to non-profit companies. The SIAE denounces a sort of three-card game by Soudreef, since the connection between the Anglo-Italian society and the LEA is particularly "close". As is commonly said, made the law, found the deception... "fault" of the Minister Franceschini, a staunch defender of the SIAE system, which has discounted the European demand, which would have wanted an integral opening also to the companies for profit, that is the complete liberalization of the copyright market.