Electrobel

I suppose a lot of Flemish people saw Basta yesterday where they took a direct hit on the activities of our beloved Sabam.  This episode of basta may innitiate the debate regarding the copyrights legislation and empowerment.
As this is a CC community and a lot of people aren't registered at Sabam but do play music (live), please share your experiences with this company regarding:
- fees they demanded incorrectly
- parties whith non-sabam live acts with sabam asking for money
- anything interesting/striking regarding this corporation
It might help in the general idea/debate that might get into a faster paste now.
cheers.

Sabam are known for sending out invoices every single time i do something (organise an event, release a record on vinyl or cd)
After calling them a couple of times, or filling out a couple of idiot forms, the invoice gets cancelled. But the fact that they always try to ask for money, means they have to ask it to a lot of organisations, labels etc, which means that 1 out of 4 times the people are ignorant, and just pay them.
For example, i released a record on my label, for this i need 'authorisation' of sabam and i sent them contracts of the artist saying; 'i hereby declare the music on this record is not part of sabam or any other copyright protection org..."One week later i get an invoice for 1900€, and this just allows you to press a record
I so far released 4 records on my label, and everytime they try to get me pay for this
Second example, I organised some release parties, had the forms filled in by the artists with their names and tracks that they played. I get fined after the party took place, because one person in one band subscribed himself in 96, and therefore, any act of his is "protected", allthough he filled in the form with titles like "sabam houssein"
After calling them, they replied, those tracks were 'probably' copyright protected... i especially liked the 'probably'
sabam is one big corporate ass organisation, if you ever concider getting your stuff 'protected' by them, just don't.. your sell your soul to the devil :)

only one experience with sabam here but still it was kinda odd. i did a live in steegske gent, couple years ago. the event was organised with all none subscribed producers so you would think we wouldn't have anything to do with sabam. still we had to fill out forms with a tracklist of all songs we would be playing that evening. even if it doesn't concern them, they enforce some sort of control on people who just wanna play some music, have a good time. filling out forms to play my own music without even the smallest connection to their organisation feels kinda as a waste of time and if u feel like exagerating a bit, it might even file under the term 'schending van de privacy' hehe

at least thanks to that show on één, the politicians seem to be reacting upon it ( or atleast so i hope )