MUMBAI: At day three of the Midem Conference, one of the key issues addressed was Copyright. It was none other than the president International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC) of Jean-Michel Jarre who suggested a few measures for the betterment of the artistes.

Talking about the reason for accepting the role of a president of CISAC he said, "CISAC represents all the sectors including photography, journalism, music etc. I accepted this role as we are now at the crucial moment to talk about the Intellectual Property Rights to get our future secured. It is very difficult for us to evaluate the value of the content we create. We as artistes are good at writing rebellious songs, but when it comes to protesting or evaluating our art, we are extremely vulnerable."

It becomes extremely difficult for the artistes to survive especially in the age of internet wherein free content is fed and mediums like Facebook and Youtube make a huge amount of money. These social networking platforms do not even a share one per cent of their revenues with the makers. Thus he emphasised on the need of the idea of fair remuneration. Explaining the concept further he added, "Being a composer myself I have had an opportunity to meet a lot of people from Facebook and Google and they are really fond of the artistes. Thus 20-25 years ago they dreamt to create something around us be it providing content for free. In this process, they have unknowingly created a monster, who takes away the share of the revenue of the artistes." He also said that the makers of the content need to be respected. The users consume content but the makers, just do not get anything.

Highlighting the importance of arts for a country, he said that art in any form plays an important role whether it is film, literature, and painting. "In every family we have one person who dreams to become an artist but at the same point in time, they see the uncertainty in their jobs. We could never have a Harry Potter had JK Rowling not written the book," exclaimed Michel.