Due to the lack of an agreement with the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (SIAE), Meta will remove Italian songs from the music catalog of its social networks.
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According to the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers, which protects the rights of some 26,000 musicians in the European country, Meta –by Mark Zuckerberg– “asked to accept a unilateral proposal. It is dispensing with any transparent and shared assessment of the effective value of the repertoire”.
However, Meta assured that it will seek a new negotiation with the SIAE to reach an agreement. The last one expired on January 1, 2023.
“We believe that allowing people to share and connect on our platforms using the music they love is a value for the entire music industry. We have licenses with more than 150 countries and we will strive to reach an agreement with SIAE that satisfies all parties,” a Meta spokesperson told Italian daily La Repubblica.
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Reviews of Italian artists
The response from Italian musicians has been vehement against the tech giant.
He PMI record label president Mario Limongellihe assured, in statements collected by Agencia EFE, that Meta is “using its own dominant position and is trying to impose unfavorable and humiliating conditions towards Italian creators.”
For its part, the association of record labels, AudioCoop, demanded that Instagram pays the rights of musicians. In addition, he recommended “not to carry out actions that could appear as extortion, such as the cancellation of the songs.”
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Even, the Italian Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, criticized Meta. She stated that “the ocean of the web must be fed with content that must be given a fair return. Otherwise it is destined to become a Dead Sea.”
In any case, you can still find in the catalog of Meta’s social networks the songs of artists as Laura Pausini and Eros Ramazzotti.
