RAO unsceduled Conference in Moscow – second stage

04.10.2017

The second stage of the extraordinary Conference of All-Russian Non-Governmental Organization “Russian Authors’ Society” (RAO) was held on October, 2 this year in Moscow. The interests of almost 29,000 RAO members were represented by delegates elected by e-voting on the Company’s website.

The delegates approved the completion of RAO reorganization and the creation of a new legal entity: – independent non-profit organization, Agency for the Management of RAO Non-core Problem Assets (AUNPA). AUNPA will manage RAO non-core and problem assets to pay off debts to right holders.

Additionally, RAO Director General Maxim Dmitriev reported at the Conference on the work of the Society for the past eight months and cited indicators reflecting positive developments in the field of collections and distribution compared to the previous year. Thus, collections from January to August, 2017 exceeded 3 billion rubles, which is approximately 8% more than the amount collected during the same period of 2016. Payouts increased by an average of 16% compared to the previous year and amounted to almost 3.2 billion rubles. At the same time, RAO managed to reduce significantly its royalty collection, distribution and payment costs – from over 1 billion rubles in 2016 to 663 million rubles for a similar period in 2017, meaning, by almost 37%. With that, RAO expenses were only 21.6% of overall collections.