Can undertakers still sing a song?
Funeral home employees will now have to be careful, they could well be wiretapped.
It is not impossible that among the grieving families there is a spy... from the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (Sacem).
His mission ?
List songs played at funerals.
As revealed by the online media L'Informé, a latent conflict opposes Sacem to the funeral group OGF, in particular owner of Pompes funèbres général.
At the end of 2019, the institution that guarantees musical copyright increased its broadcast prices.
Funeral directors must now pay 3.33 euros (excluding tax) per ceremony compared to 1.93 euros as provided for in a contract renewed each year since 2006. Refusing to pay more, OGF wanted to terminate the agreement and stopped pay the duties.
The funeral giant did not stop there and decided to take legal action against Sacem, as well as Spré, the rights collection company, believing that the music broadcast during funerals does not constitute “
communication to the public »
.
A slate of 106,000 euros
On January 31, 2024, the Paris judicial court rejected this argument and buried OGF's hopes by relying, in particular, on the field investigations of Sacem spies.
The court ruled that music is an integral part of the economic offering of funeral directors, condemning the company to pay 70,000 euros to wipe its slate clean with rights holders.
To this sum are added 10,000 euros in damages and 36,000 to be paid to the Spré.
And the amount could increase further since the leader in funerals in France must quantify all the ceremonies organized in recent years to regularize its situation.
Enough to cast a dead silence in the next funeral ceremonies.