Renars Kaupers and Kaspars Roga

We spent a lot of money to record the album and, thanks to the Internet, there is no capital return from CDs. But still we want to keep an opportunity to record the next album, and a special radio tax is one of the ways how to pay us as authors, says Kaspars Roga, drummer and idea generator of the popular Latvian band Brainstorm.

However, there are several very important problems in the work of authors’ society AKKA/LAA, he emphasized. «This organization is very non-transparent and unapproachable. It is strange that we have to pay for our own concerts, and these sums are huge. And if a new band wants to release a CD they have to pay a fee to AKKA/LAA before selling even one of them. The long administration time is also confusing – when one pays money to this organization, they often return it only three or whatever months later. Then one has to think what is happening with that money. Maybe AKKA/LAA lodges deposit and earns interest? Such kind of business contravenes to anything,» Roga said in the interview to Diena newspaper.

«AKKA/LAA should explain authors how the money is managed and for what exactly it is paid to authors. How come – Brainstorm songs have various authors, but each of us receives precisely the same amount of money. And no one can explain this. When we were at one Swedish agency, we received a huge book every month with a precise information which radio station and when had played our songs. It’s nothing like that here. We had to refuse our relationship with that Swedish agency, otherwise we are considered a foreign band in Latvia and AKKA/LAA applies a special coefficient when they pay us royalties. We came back to Latvia because we can receive more as a local band,» Roga said.

«One more problem is how AKKA/LAA communicates with people from whom they are demanding the copyright fee. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised that reaction is aggressive, because the organization’s attitude is incorrect. The bad thing is that everybody is suffering – both authors, and payers. The payer asks – why do I have to pay, and the author asks – why am a not being paid anymore? We have tried to elect at least one of our people in the board of AKKA/LAA, so we could finally understand what’s happening. But we could’t make it. In some way we are hostages of the situation,» the musician says.

Ref: 102.110.110.1498