About

La-EX (previously EXGAE) is specialized in helping citizens against abuses of royalties management societies and cultural industries lobbies.

La-EX was created as a result of the justified hostility towards some cultural industries lobbies, with the aim of equipping civil society with creative and legal skills to increase their visibility and defend themselves.
La-EX is a platform with non-profit aims. That is: a lot of aims, but no profit at all.

The information brought together on this site is a means to share tools, information and documents that La-EX members, as ordinary citizens (based on the professional and personal activities of each member, and the problems they have encountered), have had to create. La-EX members want to share these resources with everybody else who find themselves in similar situations, so that they can defend themselves from the abuses of the parts of the cultural industries that are trying to prevent the transition to the digital age by all means possible.

La-EX dialogues and works with everybody, and firmly believes that existing cultural models from the previous age must be able to coexist with the new models, without trying to set up unfair obstacles for these emerging ones.

EXGAE focuses on informing and assisting individuals (in Spain, all consumers pay the digital levy that supposedly compensates these organisations for loss of royalties due to new technologies), and, in particular, to provide legal advice to small businesses, artists, authors and producers alike.

Through practice, La-EX encourages the normalisation of new ways of creating and understanding culture. Alongside the great majority of society, it is committed to defending the right to use alternative forms of circulation of culture.

The horizon we are aiming for is to bring about a change in habits and regulations, in favour of a fairer and more beneficial use of digital resources.

La-EX is not a welfare project. La-EX invents and puts into practice.

La-EX works on six fronts:

Providing free information to over 1400 people a year, and maintaining a web site that is visited by around 10,000 people per month, for: Answers to frequently asked questions about copyright, licences, the digital levy and royalties collection societies for artists, producers, venues, businesses, IT stores, etc.. (FAQs in general and FAQ SGAE in particular); downloadable self-defense tools (As an example, download a contract model here); repertoires that are not subject to royalties, taking advantage of the potential offered by the Network of Networks today.
Providing ongoing legal advice, through independent lawyers linked to La-EX
Denouncing irregularities in the management of royalties collection societies and the cultural industries, whether they are detrimental to artists or go against the interests of users and entrepreneurs.
Analysing the changing social and political situation and designing proposals for intervention on legislation
Organising cultural events that aim to normalise free culture production, such as the oXcars.
Amplifying the potential of national and international networks, by fostering and harmonising the abilities of each node
Creating viral campaigns

In recent years, EXGAE has been one of the most active groups in the struggle for civil rights in the digital environment, at the Spanish, European and international levels.

It has participated in the organization of important milestones for freedoms on the Internet:

The fight against the Spanish Law of Sustainable Economy (LES) and the founding of RED SOSTENIBLE ;
The creation of tools for legislative reforms such as the Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge or the Declaration on Sustainable Models for Creativity in the Digital Era.
The organization of major mobilisations in 2010, such as the (D’) Evolution Summit, which was followed by more than 150,000 people during the European Summit of Ministers of Culture
Internet will Not be another TV jointly with international consumer defence organisations.

Some of its activities are financed by the different cultural associations that make up La-EX.

At the oXcars, everybody who works, is paid.

La-EX does not receive funding per sé, but we always try to have at least two people who are paid to work part-time. It isn’t always possible.

Our platform was created on 2008 and has been made public on 14 April under the name of EXGAE. From the beginning EXGAE has been backed by more than 8000 people.

Today we have an extensive national and international affinity’s network.

Below you can read why on November 29, 2010 we changed our name and to La-EX a cause of legal threats. Here is the story.