Re: First Collecting Society

Thank you for the SACEM and the CISAC website addresses, which, however, unfortunately do not publish any historical information. But I finally found what I was looking for -- For those who may like this kind of historical background:

the first collecting society for authors was created in 1847 in France by two musicians (Alexandre Bourget and Victor Parizot) who refused to pay for their seats and for their drinks in the cafe des Ambassadeurs in Paris, because they were listening to their own music without getting paid for it. Soon afterwards they created a collecting agency to collect the monies for such representations. The SACEM was created three years later in 1850. Yet, the date of 1773 is not wrong: Beaumarchais created the first authors' society for dramatic authors in order to collect the payments of the representations of the plays theatre directors simply forgot or did not wish to pay.

Best,

Sylvie Fodor
<s.fodor[_at_]akg.de> Received on Thu May 25 2000 - 15:02:34 GMT