Crowdfunding For Collection Agency

Those trying to set up a royalty collection agency in Germany to rival GEMA are turning to crowdfunding to raise the necessary cash.

GEMA’s critics claim the agency is largely controlled by legacy interests and focuses only on the small groups of artists that reach the very top of their profession.

C3S, or the Cultural Commons Collecting Society, hopes it can provide a viable alternative for groups who often have to offer their music as a free download.

Money would be collected from a license fee that downloaders would pay when purchasing their computer equipment.

Johannes Ulbricht, lawyer for the BDV promoters’ association, isn’t certain this will-intentioned venture will get off the ground.

He told Pollstar that – whatever its faults – GEMA has infrastructure to efficiently collect royalties and C3S’s aims for a fairer distribution may prove logistically difficult.

So far, C3S has euro 34,000 ($45,000) of the euro 50,000 ($66,000) funding it’s targeted, although technical blogs including Torrent Freak are saying it’ll need more like euro 200,000 ($264,000).