2024 ANNUAL REPORT

Despite a year of unprecedented political instability, Sacem maintained close relationships with political representatives. Certain issues at the French level, such as preparing the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence, were discussed almost on a daily basis. At the European level, following recent elections, Sacem has been hard at work to establish and maintain trusting relationships with all elected representatives and commissioners whose mandates concern copyright issues.

On 23 May, the GESAC—the European grouping of 32 major authors' organisations—elected our Deputy Director General, David El Sayegh, as its new president. His three key priorities are: building an AI ecosystem that fairly rewards human creativity, rebalancing the economics of music streaming, and protecting European creators from exploitation by platforms.

In January, in partnership with GEMA (Germany), Sacem released the first comprehensive analysis of the opportunities and challenges posed by AI tools in the music sector. This study assessed the market size and shares attributed to generative AI in 2023, measured how many creators already used AI in their work, and examined whether creators saw AI and GAI as a tool for inspiration or a threat that outweighs its benefits. (link to the full study)
A similar study published in November by SISAC—where Sacem made a significant contribution—confirmed these findings, concluding that the issue of copyright is central in the context of generative AI and calls for greater transparency, regulation of use, and fair financial contributions when copyrighted works are used.

Sacem played an active role in preparing the “Culture” portion of the AI summit, held in February 2025. This involved extensive coordination with the offices of the ministers of culture and economy, the Summit's special advisor Anne Bouverot, and Roxanne Varza, the advisor in charge of the session dedicated to innovation and culture. This proactive engagement ensured that Sacem's key positions were voiced and taken into account, particularly during the round table dedicated to culture.

In March, the Artificial Intelligence Commission published a report with 25 recommendations to position France as a major player in artificial intelligence. Four of these recommendations directly concern culture. These are: providing AI training for creative professionals, both at the university level and on an ongoing basis; establishing a technical infrastructure to promote networking between AI developers and custodians of cultural heritage data; implementing and evaluating the transparency requirements outlined in the AI Act by setting standards and developing the appropriate infrastructure; and finally, encouraging and accelerating the use of AI in culture and the media, effectively bridging the gap between corporate groups and smaller structures in order to limit polarisation and disinformation.

Until the spring of 2024, the “copyright collective”—led by Sacem and joined by many other organisations from the cultural and creative sectors —campaigned extensively to ensure that copyright protections remained central to French policy-making in the face of AI's rapid development. A meeting was held with the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, who underscored the importance of this cause. It was in this context that the European Parliament, followed by Member States including France, adopted the EU AI Act.
In parallel, the European Commission created the European AI Office tasked with regulating, supervising, and enforcing the requirements of the law concerning general-purpose AI (GPAI) models and systems. Specifically, this office will be responsible for developing a standardised model enabling GPAI providers to publish the crucial "sufficiently detailed summary" of their GPAI training data.
In France in December, AI researcher Alexandra Bensamoun submitted a report as part of her mission within the CSPLA on transparency in training data in light of the new European regulatory framework on artificial intelligence. Her recommendations include a proposed standard for the "detailed summary" of training datasets for general-purpose models.

On 20 December, the European Commission shared with stakeholders the second draft of its Code of Best Practices for General-Purpose AI models, with the final version expected in May 2025. We have established strong communication channels with the relevant directorates as well as with the European Commission's EU AI Office to keep these institutions informed and ensure critical issues are always taken into consideration.

This year, we implemented a proactive strategy to protect our members and our repertoire from generative AI players. This included a key measure: exercising our opt-out rights with over 250 companies around the world and embedding dedicated clauses on the reservation of rights and the protection of artist repertoires in our online contracts.

The year 2024 saw big changes in Sacem's health insurance offering in the United States. In partnership with E-SAFECARE and the ELEVATE WELLNESS association, Sacem now offers a tailor-made package at a group rate, allowing members to choose the health plan best suited to their needs.
This new programme is available via the Sacem member personalised portal which you can access by connecting to your member space on sacem.fr.
This health programme is backed by two leading health insurance companies in the United States, CIGNA and PHCS, which provide coverage across the US territory and guarantee a standard rate regardless of age or state of residence.
Additional options include dental and vision, accident coverage, and other specific plans. E-SAFECARE can also recommend insurance for travel or hospitalization outside the USA.

Sacem's mutual aid allowance scheme (RAES), open to all members, reflects Sacem's solidarity-centric social model by providing creators and publishers with supplementary income at the end of their careers.

Given the instability of artistic careers, all Sacem members can apply for aid from dedicated assistance funds.

Sacem is committed to providing continuing education opportunities to members through training programmes tailored to the needs of authors and composers.

In 2024, the Franco-American Cultural Fund – of which Sacem is a founding member alongside the Directors Guild of America, the Motion Picture Association and the Writers Guild of America West – renewed the American French Film Festival, the leading French film festival outside France. For the 28th edition, which took place from 29 October to 3 November, 60 films and series were screened, including 16 previews, such as the biopic “Saint-Exupéry” by director Pablo Agüero, “The Friends” by Emmanuel Mouret, “The Kingdom” by Julien Colonna and “The Most Precious of Cargoes” by Michel Hazanavicius.
The festival opened with TAFF's presentation of Jacques Audiard's multi-award-winning film “Emilia Pérez”, and closed with Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Petellière's “The Count of Monte Cristo”. This particularly musical edition saw a large delegation of professional talent (more than 70 producers, directors, composers and actors).

We support the Music Business Academy for Africa (Nigeria), which aims to empower the next generation of music talent and professionals, the ACCES pan-African music market (Rwanda), the FEMUA festival (Ivory Coast), and the Visa for Music festival (Morocco).

Our initiatives include funding commissions and residencies with the Impuls Neue Musik funds (Francophone and German-speaking countries), the Franco-British-Irish fund, and the Albertine Foundation's Jazz & New Music programme (France-USA).

In June, we organized our very first K-Pop songwriting camp in collaboration with major Korean music publisher CTGA, bringing together some twenty international, Korean and French songwriters in a chateau near Paris. A second edition will take place in Korea in 2025, demonstrating to our members that beyond rights management, Sacem offers tremendous networking opportunities in France and abroad.

New tools such as online film music registration, secure publisher accounts for cue-sheet submissions, and a new API allowing publishers to submit their sub-publishing contracts electronically, have enabled faster, more efficient distribution (a 3.7-point increase in the primary distribution rate vs. 2023).

As the market-leading data company, Sacem administers over 1,300 online contracts—including 151 with international players—across 230 countries, with thousands of different offers processed each month. Over 75% of the value of these rights is now paid out to creators within a 3-month period (including Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube Music).

In 2024 we launched negotiations following changes in how Sacem's repertoire was used and the organisation's active role working with the Private Copying Commission. These actions are essential to adapt pay-out scales to align with evolving music consumption habits, whether for traditional broadcasters or new players.

Developed with Deezer, SongLister simplifies the whole process of set list management for music broadcasters. With its intuitive interface, user-friendly input system, and popularity-ranked search results, users can significantly reduce homonym errors. Another tool that relies on AI was also rolled out to better process sessions and setlists received in non-digital format.

Key achievements in 2024 include the gradual roll-out of a portal for sister PROs to report concerts and set lists by foreign artists, a new data source, the automation of many calculations and entries, and the deployment of a tool for reading and analysing incoming and outgoing distribution files.

We have optimised our CRM tools and expanded online course offerings, enabling greater autonomy and enhanced services for members.