GEMA General Assembly 2024

Shaping the change together

The General Assembly is GEMA’s central governing body. The three-day event is not just essential for the community of solidarity of 95,000 members but also a living example for how democracy works within the association.

Constant change has left its mark on the music business. It is therefore all the more important that we as an association change with it. Precisely for this reason, the General Assembly lives from the participation and the personal exchange of our members in order to initiate change.

A place for togetherness and creativity

The focus of this year’s General Assembly was on the election of the Supervisory Board, the delegates and other committees and commissions. They are going to be involved on behalf of issues concerning all GEMA members over the next three years. On top of that, the three professional categories, or ‘curias’, for composers, for lyricists and for publishers, discussed the agenda items and voted on the respective motions.

The social programme offered GEMA members the opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas and to network. Participants were able to contribute to currently trending topics in various workshops and panels. There, they could also discuss the future of the music business and of GEMA with internal and external experts.

A place for progress and innovation

Presenting globally discussed topics such as sustainability in the music business, TikTok, mental health and, above all, generative artificial intelligence, GEMA positioned itself at the pulse of the times. The topic of AI, in particular, is presenting the creative industry with major changes. As a collective management organisation, we see the challenges and opportunities of the new technology and were able to present the most important results of our recently published study on AI and music at this year’s General Assembly.
In addition, the hybrid format for the General Assembly has become a fixed component for GEMA members and made a smooth communication between those attending on site and those participating digitally possible, allowed legally compliant online elections to be held. It also facilitated the attendance in additional programmes and provided ample network possibilities.