You might remember that Incubate received a letter and invoice some time ago from Buma/Stemra (Dutch music collecting society) for our 2009 festival. Based on the budget of our festival, Buma judged that we had to pay a sum of € 14.822,90 for copyright costs. This was 7% of all costs we made for the music artists at our 2009 festival (including fees, commission, travel and accommodation expenses, and rental costs of all equipment).

A couple of weeks ago, we had a very constructive and open talk with Buma/Stemra. A few things were concluded in this conversation: first of all, the calculation of copyright costs shouldn’t have been based on travel, accommodation and equipment. They should only be based on artist fees. We also found out that less than one third of all the artists at our festival are associated with a collecting society, making the percentage of copyright costs to be paid not 7% but 3%.

Secondly, five of the locations Incubate uses for music program already pay a fixed price for music copyrights to Buma. These are: 013, Paradox, Cul de Sac, Little Devil and Studio Tilburg.

For the artists performing at other locations on our festival, Incubate will pay 3% of their fees to Buma/Stemra. Buma also approved this method of calculation for Incubate 2010 and 2011. We’re very pleased with this outcome and think this is a representative fee for the music program at our festival.

Everything considered, the copyright costs that have to be paid for Incubate 2009 are now € 873,45 (exc. VAT). See the new invoice below. 3voor12 also wrote an article on this matter. Read it here (in Dutch though).