Nietzsche used to say that without music life would be a mistake.
So it is important and I think we need to protect artists.
Let me introduce myself.
I'm Anggun.
I'm Indonesian and French.
A singer songwriter.
I’m an actress, as well as a mom and a wife.
I started my career in Indonesia, I was basically a child star.
I made my first album at 9 and that was when I started writing songs, because I found out that there were not many songs for children my age, and I was really eager to grow older faster than anyone because I want to talk about love stories, about beautiful things in life but I couldn't because I was only 9.
And then when I was 12 years old, I was produced by one of the most prominent producers in Indonesia.
And so with that album after that I made 5 or 6 more albums.
I was very prolific.
But there was something not quite right in terms of rights for singers, songwriters or musicians.
All the songs that I've written in my younger years, I've never seen a cent of it.
No one actually cared about our rights.
And we didn't know much about it either, to be really, really honest.
My father was actually another case because he was a book writer.
And that was the same.
He lived his life without owning anything.
So something had to change.
And one of the...
one of my ideas was I decided to have my own record label.
I wanted to produce myself.
I produced other artists, and I thought I could make a difference but if you released an album, you can be sure that the next two days you can find it somewhere, you know, being sold on the street with copies and there's nothing you can do.
And that was one of my motivation to go overseas and to expand my career, not only just because I've always dreamt to have an international career, but also I knew that as a singer, as an artist, I could make a proper living with what I do, and I was 21 when I left my country, going to Europe.
When you write a song and you put your heart and soul in writing something beautiful and something that is meaningful to you, and you only hope that it can touch other people the same way, you rarely think about the administration part.
I live in France, so I'm a member of La SACEM.
So I know that whenever I write a song, I have to have it registered.
That is one of the ABC.
Like, you have to have your song or your craft, being already recognized and protected.
That is number one.
And then you have to somehow work the song.
One of my songs, “Savior”, one day, I received a call from my record label saying they're going to feature that on a movie, Transporter, with Jason Statham, of course.
And I thought it was, wow, this is going to be something.
And we had to negotiate about the terms and percentages, you know, like, it's like everything it’s negotiation.
But at the end of the day, the numbers that we got from the sales of that album was really astonishing.
I mean, we were double platinum in France, gold in Italy, in many countries in Europe and like seven times platinum in Indonesia.
So that is also thanks to a team, like the teamwork of people, in the service of a song.
And it’s really important that, especially for newcomers, you need to have legal advice from people who know about this.
In countries like Indonesia, I know that they are making their best to make things happen, to communicate and to educate people, but the system is there, it’s already in place.
It's not perfect yet but they are doing it right now.
So it is important.
And, I think we need to protect artists.
Because, again, without music life would be a mistake.
