SGAE press release: SGAE: José Miguel Fernández Sastrón Elected New President

José Miguel Fernández Sastrón is the new President of the Spanish General Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE). This was the decision adopted by the members of the entity’s Board of Directors at an extraordinary session held in Madrid on 20 April.

Fernández Sastrón becomes the 40th president of the institution which, over its 117 years of existence, has been led by composers (such as Ruperto Chapí, Amadeo Vives, Francisco Alonso, Jacinto Guerrero or Moreno Torroba), playwrights (such as Benito Pérez Galdós, Pedro Muñoz Seca, Carlos Arniches, Eduardo Marquina, Juan José Alonso Millán, Ana Diosdado or Santiago Moncada) or filmmakers (such as Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón or José Luis Borau), among others.

“Today marks a new era for SGAE. Under my management, priority will be given to the defence and protection of the copyright of its member authors and publishers. I shall strive toward efficiency in management to enable us to allocate to authors the appropriate return for their creations”, Sastrón stated in his initial remarks.

He was part of the entity’s Boards of Directors elected in the following years 2007, 2012, 2015 and 2016 as a representative of the Minor Rights College. Previously, he was the Vice-President of the SGAE and sat on the Management Board representing the Minor Rights collective. At 57 years old, he now becomes the President of SGAE until 2019, when the Board’s current mandate will expire.

The election of Sastrón (Madrid, 1959) as SGAE’s new President follows the resignation of scriptwriter José Luis Acosta for professional reasons on 31 March 2016.

What is SGAE?

The Spanish General Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) is a private entity devoted to the defence and collective management of the intellectual property rights of over 117,000 members. The SGAE’s fundamental mission is the protection and distribution of the remuneration earned by its members from the use of their works (public communication, reproduction, distribution, transformation and private copying) and the handling of licences for clients to use them.

Active since 1899, SGAE is the leading copyright management entity for Spain and Latin America, the fifth in Europe and the eighth in the world. It currently administers a repertoire in excess of ten million musical, dramatic, choreographic and audio-visual works.