Spain’s largest CMO for audiovisual authors has approved a major reshaping of its organisational structure.

DAMA has reshaped its organisation to adjust to its current size and leading role as a major international player and national leader in audiovisual copyright management.

Following a model common in European CMOs and other international cultural entities, DAMA has decided to create a board with two differentiated and specialised positions: Director General and Secretary General. The Director General will be responsible for institutional representation, cultural relations, internal management (including human resources), relations with members (census, registration, distributions, offices, etc.), management of the social and welfare fund (responsible for training projects, cultural promotion, and social aid) and political relations. This modification has had great support in the General Assembly. On the other hand, the Board of Directors has agreed on the two appointments, also through a very broad consensus.

The Secretary General will be responsible for relations and contracting with users of the repertoire (broadcasters, audiovisual platforms, cinemas, business associations), national and international CMOs and their associations, strategic, legal and regulatory matters, and relations with governments in regulatory and control matters (SGPI, CPI, etc.).

The Member Service Department and the Administrative Department, as well as the HR and IT, will now report to the Director General, while Legal Services and International will report to the Secretary General.

Carmen Pacheco Ronda has been appointed Director General and Ricardo Gómez Cabaleiro Secretary General.

Carmen Pacheco Ronda (Girona, 1963) has more than 30 years’ experience in the field of cultural matters and intellectual property. Since 2020, she has been DAMA’s Head of the Member Service Department, responsible for social aid programmes, training, and campaigns to support creators. She was also one of the main promoters of the Seguir Creando platform, which gave rise to the social and cultural movement that led to the proposal and approval of the Artists’ Statute, a turning point in the recognition of the uniqueness of authors and artists in terms of labour and the protection of their rights. She has designed and promoted many significant cultural and support projects linked to music, film, and television, including festivals, awards, and conferences for authors. In addition, she has organized meetings with authorities and professional organizations aimed at establishing collaboration agreements and alliances to improve the professional conditions of creators. Previously, between 1991 and 2017, she worked at SGAE as Head of the President’s Office, Responsible for Members in the Operations department (which encompassed responsibilities for distribution processes) and, subsequently, Head of Member Services and Head of the Social Aid and Welfare Programme. In that same period he was responsible for the creation of territorial member organizations and the promotion of decentralized meetings for the different professional associations. Likewise, he designed the first advanced CRM for the specialized attention of each creator.

Ricardo Gómez Cabaleiro (Vigo, 1982) is a renowned specialist in intellectual property, collective management, and competition law, with 20 years’ experience in these fields. Since February 2021 he has been the Head of Legal Services at DAMA, and since 2022 has serves as representative on the Board of Directors of CISAC, entity that brings together more than 5 million creators and 225 Authors’ societies in 116 countries. Previously he has held various positions of responsibility on that matter. Among other charges, he has been Director General of the Institute for the Protection of Rights in the Digital Environment, Instructor at the Office of the User and Members Ombudsman at SGAE, Director of the Copyright Law Institute, and partner at the Lehcab law firm for 12 years, where he led some of the main legal proceedings in recent years both regarding IP both in national courts and before the CJEU. He has also advised many national and international CMOs (mainly from Europe and the U.S.), as well as other right holders (broadcasters and platforms, global tech companies, publishers, authors, actors, and sports events organisers). He has also represented the interests of rights holders in legislative and regulatory development processes in Spain and the European Union. He is founding member of the Spanish Association of Entertainment Law (DENAE) and a member of the Spanish Association of Competition Law (AEDC) and ALADDA (the Spanish branch of ALAI). In the academic field, he is a professor in the main master’s degree programmes for specialisation in intellectual property and he is author of a dozen publications on copyright (books and articles) with law publishers such as Aranzadi and Tirant lo Blanch.