About

Led by director of legal and public affairs Cristina Perpiñá-Robert Navarro, and overseen by director general and expert lawyer Gadi Oron, the CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) legal department oversees a unique set of responsibilities. The unusual remit that the organisation takes on is that of protecting the rights and promoting the interests of creators across all artistic fields around the world. Senior legal advisors Constance Herreman Follain and Leonardo De Terlizzi and legal assistant Clémentine Scott came in for particular praise from Navarro for the key contribution they have made in an extremely intense last two years for CISAC. Reinforcing and diversifying its involvement in the main discussions taking place around the world concerning authors’ rights, CISAC has played a key role in the most relevant policy initiatives, ensuring that the voice of creators has always been heard. It has been particularly active in the copyright reform at EU level until the final adoption of the Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market of April 17, 2019. ‘The adoption of this directive is a milestone in copyright legislation and a big victory for the creative community after more than three years of debates’, says Navarro. ‘CISAC President, Jean-Michel Jarre spoke to the European Parliament to address the necessity for Europe to adopt the directive before the key vote took place’. In addition to this, ‘as a result of CISAC’s efforts in promoting the implementation of private copying remuneration in the African region, in the last two years Morocco, Cape Verde, Tunisia and Malawi have started to collect remuneration for private copying for the first time, we have published five studies and guides to support out legal lobbying work, have overseen GDPR implementation and have created CISAC University to provide an industry-leading information resource to help drive awareness and education about the importance of the rights of creators around the world’. Continuing on the theme of reasons for the team’s success, Navarro says, ‘As a small team with a global remit, our ethos is about coordinating rigorously with our community around the world while at the same time providing the focus to deliver concrete results. The legal team has been able to develop an extremely efficient, organised and coordinated work system to achieve this’.