The rude woman was wrong, of course. There are many crimes that it is easy to commit — they are still crimes.

There is a Spanish collecting society, SGAE, but I don’t know the detail of how it works for writers. It had some problems some years ago but as far as I know it has sorted itself out. It might be worth looking up one of the umbrella organisations such as CISAC or IFRRO to see what information they have on Spain.

There are occasions when you can join a collecting society that is in a different country but that also varies. If for example you publish in a different country you might be able to join up there.

Good luck and thanks for calling in to comment.