The German Export Music Office is finally
on its way to being born. Germans are always supposed to do
business very properly and thoroughly. It appears that more
than 10 years after France and behind Sweden, Finland, Norway,
Denmark , Netherlands, Switzerland (by only a couple of years),
Germany is closer than ever to heeding the wake up call for
a federal export office for music.
But who would have thought that it would be the masterminds
of the project, who revealing the news, are to be disappointed.
The German Music Council, which intends to become a shareholder
of the prospective PLC company to run this office, put out
a press release that caused a bit of a buzz. On November 26
The Deutsche Musikrat (DRM) aka the German Music Council reached
an agreement that the organisation will get a 10% stake in
the common project and revealed the name for the office. It
is an array of organisations and associations (among others
the Bundesverband Phonografischer Industrie - the German branch
of the IFPI, GEMA, GVL and the Association of Independent
Record Producers - V.U.T) who are supposed to join forces
to set up ‘German Sounds’. This title is currently
the favourite name for the office, since almost three years
ago; an unknown consulting agency grabbed the name and web
domain for the German Music Export Office.
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So
the chances at least look pretty good that German Sounds will
be founded in the near future. The anticipated managing director
of German Sounds is Peter James, who is also the managing director
of V.U.T. and has been the driving force for the setting up
of the office. After years of chasing opportunities, he has
now almost completed the fundraising and overall settings for
such an office. But institutional proceedings in Germany are
used to taking their time and demanding patience of the members.
The estimated budget for German Sounds is expected to be 350.000
Euro, even less than 5 % of the 7.5 million Euro spent by the
Grande Nation of France. So there is no point in expecting the
official German authorities to swell with pride at being so
very progressive and courageous.
It is certainly not James’ fault of that the proceedings
have taken so long. While the music business and its organisations
generally suffer from an overwhelming conservatism, political
and administrative bodies are in this context probably twice
as retarded. According to well-informed sources, the leading
forces behind German Sounds originally even disliked the idea
of getting the live music organisations involved. Well, the
mentality of German officers is in a class of its own and
shows some similarities to certain record company employees.
Nevertheless the equivalent organisations in Europe as well
as the media and the remaining industry will eagerly look
forward to the birthday of Germany Sounds.
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