Muhammad Ibadurrohman
On April 7, 2026, the Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM) marked a monumental milestone: its 175th anniversary, a testament to its enduring mission of protecting creators’ rights. At the heart of these celebrations, CEO Cécile Rap-Veber provided an insightful retrospective on the organization’s origins and a forward-looking perspective on its pivotal role in the modern music ecosystem. Rap-Veber recounted the legendary founding anecdote: "It was born out of a lawsuit whose legitimacy was undeniable. Imagine creators sitting in a café, realizing their music is being played there. When they tell the owner they’ll pay for their drinks once he pays for their music, he refuses. That lawsuit became our founding act." This seminal event, rooted in the mid-19th century Parisian intellectual and artistic scene, laid the groundwork for one of the world’s most influential collective rights organizations, establishing the fundamental principle that artistic creation holds inherent commercial value deserving of fair remuneration.
A Legacy Forged in Legal Precedent and Cultural Stewardship
SACEM’s inception in 1851 wasn’t merely a legal formality; it was a revolutionary act in an era where the concept of intellectual property was nascent and creators often toiled in obscurity, deprived of the financial fruits of their labor. The "café lawsuit" mythologized by Rap-Veber encapsulates the struggle for recognition and fair compensation that has defined SACEM’s mission for nearly two centuries. In an age before mass media, public performance was a primary avenue for music consumption, and the lack of a system to compensate composers and authors for these uses was a glaring injustice. SACEM emerged from this void, becoming a pioneer in collective rights management and setting a global standard for how artistic works are licensed and royalties are distributed. Its foundational principles, deeply rooted in French copyright law, have influenced similar organizations worldwide, championing the rights of creators against the commercial exploitation of their intellectual property without due compensation.
Cécile Rap-Veber’s own journey mirrors this blend of legal rigor and artistic passion. Her career trajectory began in intellectual property law, specializing in a field that intrinsically linked her professional life to the protection of creative endeavors. This early immersion in legal frameworks defending artists’ rights provided a robust foundation for her subsequent evolution into a key figure in the music industry. Her tenure at Universal Music, a global powerhouse, offered a comprehensive understanding of the commercial intricacies of music production and distribution. Since joining SACEM in 2013, she has steadily ascended, culminating in her appointment as CEO in 2021, bringing with her a wealth of experience in both the legal and commercial dimensions of the music business. Her leadership has been characterized by a drive for transparency, efficiency, and a proactive approach to the challenges posed by technological shifts.
Navigating the Digital Tides: SACEM’s 2025 Performance and Strategic Vision
The year 2025 proved to be another period of significant achievement for SACEM under Rap-Veber’s guidance. The organization distributed a remarkable €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) to its vast network of 663,000 songwriters, composers, authors, and publishers. This impressive figure underscores the global reach and economic impact of the collective management system. A standout performer was the domain of international digital collections, which surged by 13% year-over-year, climbing from €749 million ($880 million) to €845 million ($992 million). This growth highlights the undeniable shift in music consumption towards global streaming platforms and SACEM’s adeptness at monetizing these new digital channels on an international scale. In contrast, collections within France remained stable at €859 million, indicating a mature domestic market facing different dynamics, potentially impacted by evolving media consumption habits and economic pressures.
In an exclusive interview with Billboard France, Rap-Veber delved into the intricacies of SACEM’s 2025 performance and articulated her vision for future growth. Her insights reveal an organization keenly aware of its historical responsibilities while aggressively embracing the complexities of the digital age. The focus on international digital revenue is not merely a strategic choice but a reflection of the globalized nature of music today, where a French composition can find an audience in any corner of the world through streaming services. This expansion strategy is crucial for sustaining growth as traditional revenue streams face stagnation or decline.
A Life Steeped in Culture: The CEO’s Personal Connection to Creation
Rap-Veber’s profound connection to culture is not merely professional; it is deeply personal. "I’ve Always Been Surrounded by Culture," she declared, tracing her earliest influences to her parents. Her father, a fashion designer, curated cassette tapes for his runway shows, exposing her to American pop, disco, and French variété. Weekends in the family home were dedicated to opera, fostering an early appreciation for diverse musical forms. Her formative years coincided with the advent of pirate radio stations, a period she fondly recalls with her "little Sony Cube clock radio" tuned into NRJ’s pioneering broadcasts. The soundtracks of her youth included iconic artists like Michael Jackson, Human League, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Indochine, Étienne Daho, and France Gall, illustrating a constant immersion in the sonic landscape of her generation.
This cultural lineage extends beyond music. Rap-Veber hails from a family of distinguished creators, although not exclusively musicians. She proudly noted her ancestor, José-Maria de Heredia, a founder of the influential Parnassian poetry movement, known for its emphasis on formal perfection and objective beauty. Her uncle, Francis Veber, is a renowned director responsible for beloved French comedies such as The Dinner Game and La Chèvre, films that have left an indelible mark on French cinema. Her sister is an author, her mother a journalist and theater director, and her father, even at 84, has recently embarked on writing a 350-page book. This rich creative heritage, she explained, instilled in her a deep respect for the artistic process. Recognizing she did not possess their specific talents, she chose a path dedicated to protecting creators, leading her to intellectual property law. Her early legal career, commencing in 1995 after passing the bar, immediately gravitated towards defending cultural industries, with approximately 75% of her clients coming from the music business, representing labels like EMI and Virgin, as well as artists like Zazie and Matthieu Chedid. The remaining 25% were drawn from film and television production, cementing her lifelong commitment to the cultural sector.
From Universal Music to SACEM: A Path of Strategic Evolution
Rap-Veber’s transition from a lawyer to an executive at Universal Music marked a significant shift in her career focus. As a lawyer, her work encompassed both contractual negotiations, safeguarding artists’ rights in label deals, and litigation, addressing copyright infringement and privacy violations. She even handled criminal cases for certain rappers, cherishing the adversarial environment of the courtroom. At Universal, her role evolved to representing the label’s interests, but always with an eye toward maintaining a crucial balance between the artist and the company. She believed that equitable relationships, particularly in multi-album record deals, were essential for long-term success.
Her arrival at Universal coincided with a transformative period just before the seismic collapse of the physical music market. It was an era when Universal aggressively diversified its portfolio, and Rap-Veber played a strategic role in developing projects such as the popular reality TV shows Popstars and Star Academy. This experience broadened her perspective beyond legal specifics, immersing her in strategic initiatives that shaped the future of the label.
Her journey to SACEM in 2013, where she became CEO in 2021, built upon this diverse experience. Initially, her responsibilities at SACEM encompassed licensing across traditional media, physical formats like CDs, private copying, and the nascent stages of digital distribution. The inherently global nature of digital rights quickly led her to manage a growing portfolio of international matters. Recognizing the immense data processing demands of digital rights, she spearheaded the development of URights, a sophisticated data-processing platform. Subsequently, she was entrusted with overseeing international operations, further solidifying her expertise in global collective management.
Transforming a Global Leader: Transparency and Efficiency at SACEM
Upon her arrival, SACEM already held a formidable reputation as a major global leader, particularly respected by sister societies worldwide due to the strength of French copyright law. However, like many collective management organizations, it faced accusations of opacity. This was a perception Rap-Veber was determined to change. Coming from the corporate world of Universal and a legal background, she admitted to not fully understanding SACEM’s internal workings before joining. Once inside, she discovered 1,300 dedicated employees committed to defending authors’ rights, creators, and publishers. Her key insight was that while the work was vital, the communication around it was lacking.
Under her leadership, SACEM embarked on an extensive transparency initiative, ensuring members had clear visibility into collected and distributed royalties, and the proper registration of their catalogs. Simultaneously, the organization achieved remarkable efficiency gains, reducing management costs by nearly 40% over five years. This was accomplished while simultaneously doubling its new membership numbers annually since the post-COVID recovery, from approximately 7,000 to nearly 15,000 new members each year. While these new members may not immediately generate substantial royalties, they represent a pipeline of future creators whose works will eventually contribute to SACEM’s collections. Cost reductions were achieved through pooling IT infrastructure with other global creators and migrating processing tools to the cloud, significantly enhancing operational agility and efficiency. This strategic overhaul has allowed SACEM to collect more royalties than ever, driven by streaming growth, for an expanding base of creators through strategic partnerships, all while leveraging more agile technological tools.
International Expansion: A New Frontier for French Music
International business has become the primary engine of SACEM’s growth. While the French market and traditional exploitation channels like concerts and media have remained stable, often impacted by declining advertising revenues in traditional media, international digital business represents the dynamic frontier. Rap-Veber highlighted that for many French creators, international streams now account for a significant 50% to 60% of their revenues. Artists like L’Impératrice, Gojira, DJ Snake, and David Guetta exemplify the growing global reach of French music, demonstrating that French creators are exporting their talent and music worldwide at an unprecedented scale.
SACEM employs a robust system for tracking live performance royalties, even abroad. This involves a declaration system where creators, publishers, or managers submit their setlists through an online portal, which is then cross-referenced with declarations from promoters. For international performances, SACEM collaborates closely with its sister societies globally to ensure comprehensive collection. Rap-Veber also noted a key distinction: in France, SACEM can collect royalties regardless of venue size, a broader scope than in countries like the U.S., where legal restrictions limit ASCAP’s collection capabilities. While ASCAP, the main U.S. society, boasts 1.5 million members, Rap-Veber clarified that SACEM collects more royalties overall, emphasizing its effective reciprocal agreements that ensure SACEM members are paid in the U.S., and vice versa.
A significant area of ambition for Rap-Veber is expanding SACEM’s agreements with African collecting societies. Over the past decade, SACEM has actively worked to empower African creators to earn a sustainable living from their music, recognizing the complexity of digital rights management which demands substantial technological investment. Agreements with organizations like Burida in Ivory Coast and Sodav in Senegal, and for Arabic-language creators, particularly in Lebanon, enable SACEM to manage their global digital rights. These repertoires are now generating several million euros in digital royalties, with their international reach continuing to expand, representing an "incredible momentum" for cultural exchange and economic empowerment.
The Streaming Economy: Challenges and Opportunities
The early 2010s saw SACEM engage in crucial negotiations with nascent streaming platforms, laying the groundwork for royalty allocation in the digital age. Rap-Veber recounted how the initial foundation was set with Apple’s iTunes, which valued authors’ rights at 8% of the download price, a figure derived from 9% of the wholesale CD price. This valuation, she argued, was inherently unfair, as digital distribution eliminated manufacturing and logistics costs for labels, suggesting authors’ rights should have commanded a larger share. However, once a global standard is established, it becomes exceedingly difficult to alter.
Initial streaming deals also hovered around 8%, but through persistent negotiation, SACEM has managed to double that figure to approximately 16% today. Despite this improvement, master rights still command the lion’s share of streaming revenue. However, Rap-Veber believes the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) could disrupt this balance. Since AI training models primarily rely on the underlying composition rather than necessarily the original recording, this presents a new leverage point for creators to capture greater value.
The digital revolution has been a double-edged sword, bringing both improved transparency and increased complexity. Digital platforms allow creators from any country to reach a global audience, and SACEM’s agreements with giants like YouTube, Meta, and TikTok provide precise usage data, leading to more accurate royalty distribution. Yet, the sheer volume of content, further exacerbated by generative AI, creates an overwhelming landscape where standing out is increasingly difficult. Digital offers immense opportunities but also carries the risk of dilution, resulting in a lower value per track compared to the CD era.
A persistent concern for SACEM is France’s lagging paid streaming penetration, which stands at around 25% compared to 50% in the United States. France’s deep cultural attachment to free access to culture, while laudable for audiences, paradoxically slows the conversion to paid services. The quality of free streaming offerings has become so robust that users often feel little incentive to subscribe. This "acquisition funnel" struggles to convert, leading to a situation where if people are convinced culture should be free, monetizing it becomes a significant challenge, directly impacting the financing of creation and the livelihoods of artists and industry professionals. Rap-Veber suggested the need for more restrictions on free tiers to encourage subscriptions, though she acknowledged the current global economic crisis and inflationary pressures make paying for music a lower priority for many compared to essential needs like heating, housing, and food.
AI and the Future of Rights: Navigating Uncharted Waters
The emergence of Artificial Intelligence presents perhaps the most significant challenge and opportunity for copyright in the modern era. SACEM is actively engaging in negotiations with AI companies, though Rap-Veber admitted, "Everything still needs to be built." The initial deals will be experimental, with the primary objective being to compensate creators for the training of AI models on their copyrighted works. Critical questions remain unresolved: Should AI-generated content remain confined within applications? Who bears the financial responsibility – the AI company or the professional user? Rap-Veber expressed confidence in SACEM’s historical ability to forge agreements with technology companies, a drive that continues to guide their approach to AI.
SACEM is also exploring potential collaborations with master rights holders, acknowledging that a united front might strengthen their negotiating position. However, Rap-Veber firmly stated that no agreement would be signed without the explicit approval of creators, emphasizing that many authors did not foresee AI-related uses when they initially joined SACEM. A significant hurdle in these negotiations is the refusal of many AI firms to engage transparently. They acknowledge training on "publicly available material" but often conflate "available" with "free of rights," a critical distinction for copyright holders. When SACEM demands transparency regarding the datasets used for training, these companies often remain silent. This lack of cooperation is prompting calls for legislation that would reverse the burden of proof, compelling AI companies to demonstrate that they have not used copyrighted material without permission.
Regarding the registration of fully AI-generated works, SACEM’s stance depends on the degree of human creation involved. Rap-Veber cited Björn Ulvaeus, ABBA co-founder and CISAC president, who uses AI tools like Suno as an additional studio aid while still composing the core songs himself. In such cases, the work retains its originality and qualifies for copyright protection. However, simply prompting an AI to create "Mozart-style music with Ferré-style lyrics" is insufficient for copyright eligibility, as it lacks the human creative spark. SACEM has published guidelines to clarify these conditions for its members. Despite the challenges, Rap-Veber views every technological innovation as an opportunity, citing pioneers like Jean-Michel Jarre and Pedro Winter who have long embraced technology to push creative boundaries. Her ultimate vision is for AI to develop in a "virtuous relationship" with creators, "not against them," ensuring copyright is respected.
Culture as a Pillar of National Sovereignty and Economic Power
Cécile Rap-Veber passionately argues that music and culture, more broadly, remain severely undervalued economically. She highlighted that the cultural ecosystem in France generates a staggering €100 billion ($117 billion) in revenue, supports one million jobs, and contributes €50 billion ($58 billion) in added value. To put this in perspective, culture generates more value in France than the automotive industry, a fact that often goes unrecognized. Beyond economics, Rap-Veber frames culture as a critical issue of national sovereignty. French cinema, music, and visual arts are exported globally, embodying a "cultural exception" that is admired worldwide. This cultural strength is an integral part of France’s national identity and geopolitical standing.
She asserted that France should be as proud of its theater, cinema, television, press, and music – which "makes the entire world dance" – as it is of its gastronomy and luxury industries. Consequently, she advocates for increased investment to better export French cultural products and influence. She sees the Centre National de la Musique (CNM) as a crucial institution, uniting recorded music, creation, and live performance under one roof. This integrated approach, she believes, can foster the emergence of global export champions. While not advocating for earlier artist identification, she stresses that once an artist begins touring, publishing and master-rights teams must collaborate closely and quickly to maximize the impact of that tour. This requires both close collaboration and robust financial resources, making CNM funding critical for supporting emerging talent, promoting diversity, and boosting exports.
Addressing Controversy: The Funeral Music Rights
Rap-Veber also addressed a past controversy regarding copyright collection at funerals, describing the media coverage as "sensationalist." She clarified that SACEM never directly contacted grieving families. Instead, the organization sought to clarify an existing agreement with funeral companies concerning music played during ceremonies – a service for which these companies had already been billing families. For years, these companies allocated a small fee for music rights, but some ceased payment while continuing to charge families. A judge ultimately ruled that music, like flowers or electricity, should be compensated. To de-escalate the situation and address public concerns, SACEM agreed on a symbolic flat fee of approximately €1 ($1.7) per ceremony, emphasizing its minimal, yet principle-driven, nature.
As SACEM looks to the future from its 175th anniversary, Cécile Rap-Veber’s leadership embodies a commitment to upholding its founding principles while fearlessly navigating the complex, ever-evolving landscape of digital media and artificial intelligence. Her strategic vision for international growth, coupled with a deep-seated belief in the intrinsic value of culture, positions SACEM not just as a guardian of rights, but as a crucial advocate for the creative spirit in a rapidly changing world.
