GEMA has a brand new CEO. As of October 1, Dr. Tobias Holzmüller will succeed Dr. Harald Heker within the high job, the GEMA Supervisory Board introduced after its June 28 assembly.
Holzmüller, who’s effectively revered in European collective administration circles, has run GEMA’s authorized operations since 2013, throughout which period he helped the group marketing campaign for the 2019 European Union directive on copyright and associated rights within the Digital Single Market and purchase the digital distribution firm Zebralution and its neighboring rights assortment enterprise. He additionally performed a key position in establishing ICE, the worldwide on-line copyright licensing “hub” established and operated by GEMA and the U.Ok. and Swedish collective administration organizations (CMOs), PRS and STIM.
“Tobias Holzmüller, not only an excellent, globally respected copyright expert but also an extremely well-connected and committed advocate for our concerns is taking over GEMA management,” stated GEMA supervisory board chairman Dr. Ralf Weigand within the group’s announcement. (It is customary in Germany to deal with attorneys as “Dr.”) “We look forward to continuing GEMA’s successful trajectory with him and tackling the immense challenges that lie ahead for us and the entire music industry.”
Holzmüller takes the helm of GEMA at a time when the top of the pandemic and the ensuing return of the live performance enterprise has mixed with streaming development and better leverage on the half of hubs to ship vital development to CMOs. In early April, GEMA introduced that it took in 1.18 billion euros ($1.28 billion) in 2022 — a 13% enhance over 2021 the primary 12 months — distributing greater than 1 billion Euros to rightsholders for the primary time.
At the identical time, GEMA now competes with the opposite European CMOs to symbolize the works of songwriters and publishers and license on-line rights all through Europe and in lots of different international locations, excluding the United States. (GEMA additionally nonetheless collects royalties in Germany for the use of compositions at live shows and in bars and eating places, amongst different locations.) And the income of its rivals can also be rising: PRS for Music took in a document excessive 964 million kilos ($1.22 million), up 23% from the earlier 12 months, whereas income on the French group SACEM rose 34% to 1.41 billion euros ($1.54 billion)
Under Heker, GEMA has a status for being sluggish to embrace new know-how — it solely reached a licensing settlement with YouTube in 2016 — however maybe it simply held out for higher offers. “Under his leadership,” Weigand stated within the announcement, “GEMA has mastered the profound changes incurred by the world’s move from analog to digital music very successfully.”
As the combat between rightsholders and on-line platforms evolves right into a extra delicate battle about how royalties needs to be collected and distributed, Holzmüller’s appointment represents a generational change. (Heker, who steered GEMA for 17 years, was usually addressed as “Dr. Heker,” by colleagues, as is conventional in Germany; Holzmüller simply goes by “Tobias.”) Having helped solidify a authorized panorama for the net world, GEMA should now compete with its sister societies for market share within the new music enterprise.
“From my predecessor, I am taking over an excellently positioned organization that achieves economic success for our members and is committed to a strong copyright law,” Holzmüller stated within the announcement. “I would like to continue the process of modernization, growth and openness.”
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