IMARA, a federation of collective management entities for the defense and promotion of musical artists' rights, is born.
Barcelona, February 27, 2025 – End of February, the International Alliance for the Rights of Musical Artists (IMARA), a new international organization with a global perspective on the defense of the rights of music performers, was launched.
The event, held at the headquarters of the Society of Artists AIE in Barcelona, was attended by representatives of AIE (Spain), APOLLON (Greece), ARTISTI (Canada), CPRA (Japan), EEL (Estonia), EJI (Hungary), ERATO (Greece), FKMP (South Korea), GDA (Portugal), HUZIP (Croatia), NUOVO IMAIE (Italy), PI (Serbia), PLAYRIGHT (Belgium), RAAP (Ireland), RPM (Malaysia), SAMI (Sweden), SAWP (Poland), SPEDIDAM (France) and STOART (Poland), entities that promote this initiative.
In this first meeting, the gathered entities have elected the new Board, highlighting the role of Annie Morin, Executive Director of ARTISTI, who will become the first Chair of the Alliance. Additionally, IMARA decided to nominate the AIE’s CEO, José Luis Sevillano, as General Coordinator.
The incoming president of IMARA, Annie Morin, highlighted “the importance of the confluence of the goals of all the entities that make up this Alliance, given the constant risks that question music performers’ rights and their role in the creative process. Performers’ entities have been defending the rights of musicians in each of their countries for years, facing major challenges that require global solutions and a single voice. IMARA will be the voice that will defend music performers’ rights in supranational organizations and before national governments and legislators”.
For his part, the president of the Society of Artists AIE, Luis Cobos, emphasized the importance of creating IMARA to guarantee and develop the rights of music performers, through international legislation and regional or national laws that adapt the protection of rights to the market realities imposed by new technologies. “IMARA will be the international voice of music performers, addressing the global challenges musicians face in a digital environment that does not fairly remunerate them and with protection periods that have become insufficient due to the unlimited exploitation of interpretations and performances fixed in phonograms or audiovisual recordings”.
Global Representation of Music Performers
IMARA is born with the aim of becoming an international lobbying body and the goal of globally representing musical artists, fostering collaboration between the entities that make it up. To this end, it will work on an integrated plan to address the challenges and demands faced by performers and musician artists worldwide in the current context.
Among its main objectives are the defense of the expansion of the right to remuneration on streaming services and UGC (User Generated Content) platforms, to ensure fair compensation for music performers for the use of their music on digital platforms; the collection of neighboring rights for them, also in the context of audiovisual recordings; and the pursuit of AI regulation aimed at protecting performers’ rights.
Furthermore, IMARA will also implement specific actions to guarantee adequate legislation in territories where the protection of musical artists is insufficient. In countries that already have appropriate legislation for their development, it will mentor and support technological, business, and financial aspects for the creation of new musical artists’ entities, in collaboration with the Societies’ Council for the Collective Management of Performers’ Rights (SCAPR).
Organizational Structure and Alliances
The governing bodies of IMARA will consist of the General Assembly of participating members and an Executive Board made up of nine entities, at least, one from each geographic area (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia), to ensure an adequate balance between the different regions of the world, as well as three additional entities elected at the discretion of the Assembly.
IMARA will also develop those alliances necessary for achieving common goals with organizations such as the Ibero-Latin American Federation of Performing Artists (FILAIE), the Association of European Performer’s Organizations (AEPO-ARTIS), SCAPR, and will follow up on the implementation of the Beijing Treaty, together with the Global Audiovisual Alliance (GAVA).