The Spanish royalty-collection agency SGAE (pronounced "sky") does not tire of opening itself up to ridicule. Only days after the widespread amusement caused by it trying to charge a Barcelona hairdresser's a monthly fee for having the radio on comes the news that it is targeting the tuna, not the fish but the ensemble of student buskers who dress up in Elizabethan costumes to serenade their audience. "They'll be the death of the tunas. Our performances are not for profit," the President of the National Council of Tunas, Joseba "Canary" Molina, explained to the newspaper Público, "and the payment they are demanding means we lose a lot of money." The lyrics of the tuna standard Clavelitos have been adapted - the flowers are now given from the singers' heart to the "Sky" inspectors.

The SGAE responds that it does not want to collect money from the tunas themselves, but from the organizers of events where admission is charged. But Joseba Molina says that SGAE representatives tried to charge them for a performance of eight tunas in Bilbao. "In the end, the SGAE representatives wanted to collect an amount in cash and we refused point blank, that's all the dealings we have had with them," he said, according to Público.

Apart from the SGAE's apparently infinite greed, the problem seems to be its policy of using more or less 'freelance' inspectors, with carte blanche as to exactly how they make their collections.

More:
EcoDiario.es - If the Tuna Serenades You, the SGAE Passes the Hat (Spanish)
Público - The SGAE Denies Collecting Royalties from Tunas (lying bastards, Spanish)