It seems pirates aren’t the only ones getting raided for ripping off musicians, with Spanish police and tax officials raiding the offices of anti-piracy groups SGAE and SDAE over the weekend. Management from the two organisations have been arrested after a two year investigation into embezzlement, fraud, and misappropriation of funds.
SGAE and SDAE are the two main collecting societies for songwriters, composers and publishers in Spain, and similarly to their counterparts in the rest of the world have recently been lobbying heavily for tougher copyright legislation and longer terms. They had all their computers and mobile phones confiscated and some employees questioned over a total of 14 hours.
The complaint against SGAE revolves around how the company their handling of the funds they receive from Spain’s blank media levy, which is added to every blank CD and DVD sold in the country. The complaint by The Asociacion de Internautas and others alleges that SGAE employees misappropriated revenue intended for musicians from this fund and used the money to generate money for themselves and their families as well as sending the money destined for Spanish musicians into private Swiss bank accounts.
SDAE is the digital rights arm of SGAE, and is the central player in the allegations as they hired a company called Microgenesis as consultants. Microgenesis was, in fact, barely an independent consultancy at all as it was made up of Jose Luis Rodriguez Neri, Director General of SDAE and ex-director of SGAE; Maria Antonia Garcia Pombo, the ex-president of Microgenesis and Neri’s wife; and Eva Garcia Pombo, Partner-Chief Legal Officer and Neri’s sister-in-law. All three of them were arrested in the raid along with Chairman of SGAE Teddy Bautista, Microgenesis Partner-Chief Executive Officer Rafael Ramos, majority shareholder Elena Vazquez, and Partner-Chief Financial Officer Celedonio Martin.
We will update you with more information as we get it.
[via TorrentFreak and El Mundo]