In early January, Stéphane Georges, owner of Bilou’s Bar in Le Creusot, received a letter from the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (Sacem).
He has been in the business for thirty years and he does not immediately pay attention to the mail, thinking that it was about the renewal of his contract and that he would have to pay a little less than 1,000 euros, like all every year, at Sacem with a quarterly deadline of April 1st.
Also, a fortnight ago, he opened the famous mail. And on reading, he discovers that “in accordance with the general conditions of your contract, that the amount due to Sacem in respect of copyright was revised during its annual renewal. The amount to be paid, for this period, is 5,620,277,272.50 euros excluding tax”, report our colleagues from Journal of the Saone-et-Loire. However, this sum benefits from a reduction of 20%!
An April Fool?… No, a simple computer error
Stéphane Georges was “surprised, and ultimately amused”. He sent an email to Sacem to point out the error and he also informed his bank that a debit of 1.4 billion would be made on April 1 on his account.
In the end, Stéphane Georges received an email from Sacem this Friday in which the organization apologizes to him and mentions a computer error.