About

The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) represents 230 authors’ societies in 120 countries. The legal function has switched focus from internal matters to dealing with worldwide projects in a niche industry that goes beyond traditional corporate work. The individual behind this shift is Gadi Oron, director general since 2014 and with CISAC since 2012. Since his appointment Oron has directed the team to extend their legal practice to manage international law matters with United Nations institutions such as World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and European Union bodies such as the European Commission and Parliament. He helps members across the word with copyright lobbying initiatives, government relations and universal legal matters such as competition, contract and litigation law, to name a few. ‘The key challenge was to significantly expand the areas of work and expertise of the legal department while maintaining the same budget and resources’, and he has been efficacious in doing so. Oron is an expert in copyright law and has been with the creative industry for over 16 years, with a strong and lasting passion to promote the interest of authors worldwide. Amongst his many achievements are his lobbying on a new international copyright treaty for visual artists with the WIPO and the launch of an appeal at the Supreme Court of India on copyright protection. Most of all Oron has earned worldwide recognition for his ability to bring together and deal with high-level government officials in different countries while bridging the gap between them and different sectoral stakeholders. ‘This is often challenging given the different legal systems involved, but also very rewarding as it forces me to be on top of what’s happening in the copyright field across the world’. Oron brings reality to CISAC’s commitment to protect the authors of both the developed and developing world while he takes it a step further and brings all entities involved under a single umbrella of communication.