A key actor in the provision of cultural services is the non-profit sector, many times linked to big financial or industrial corporations. The financial crisis dramatically changed the funding of culture by the private sector, as many of the Cajas de Ahorro or saving banks disappeared. Still, institutions such as the Fundación Bancaria “la Caixa”, Fundación BBVA, Fundación Mapfre, or the Fundación Ramón Areces have their funding programmes for the promotion of culture and sometimes run their own cultural centres.
There are currently eight collecting societies authorised by the Spanish Ministry to be in charge of the management of usage and other asset rights, on behalf of and in the interest of several authors or other holders of intellectual property rights: the Spanish Society of Authors Composers and Publishers (SGAE), the Spanish Reproduction Rights Centre (CEDRO), the Association for the Management of Intellectual Rights (AGEDI), the Artists and Performers Society of Spain (AIE), the Visual Management Entity of Plastic Artists (VEGAP), the Audio-visual Producers’ Rights Management Association (EGEDA), the Artists, Interprets, Management Society (AISGE), and the Audiovisual Media Author’s Rights (DAMA).
Professional institutions work for the promotion of the cultural industries and safeguard author’s rights. Groups acting on issues related to artistic and cultural rights in recent years are for example:
- Spanish Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media Professionals, founded in 2006, with the aim of promoting equal participation of women in the audiovisual media;
- Coalition of Creators and Content Industries, founded in 2008, with the aim to lobby for tightening of the intellectual property law and other measures against file sharing on P2P networks. It consists of several associations that are linked to authors and to the music and film industries in Spain;
the Spanish Federation of Associations of Cultural Managers, created late 1999, aims to unify the efforts of cultural management associations to address problems at state level, especially those related to the consolidation of the figure of the cultural manager and his or her social and professional recognition. It has developed two Pacts for Culture (in 2010 and 2015) aimed at influencing cultural policies based on the consensus of the professional sector.
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