BLCPS can be a game-changing CMO in safeguarding music IP rights and royalty collection: Satoshi Watanabe
The battle to ensure the appropriate Intellectual Property (IP) rights of the lyricists, composers and performers, has been a long-standing issue in the entertainment industry of Bangladesh. As the term IP refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; symbols, names and images used for commercial purposes - professional music creators must get their deserving, hard-earned royalties. In Bangladesh, however - the scenario has been frustrating for ages. Without a proper CMO (Collective Management Organisation), professional music creators in the country suffered to receive their due and deserving royalties - until the arrival of BLCPS or Bangladesh Lyricist Composers & Performers Society, the first and only Collective Management Organisation (CMO) for Music authorised by the government. Founded in 2013, the organisation received its licence from the government in 2014 to accomplish its vision to protect and manage the rights of Bangladeshi songwriters, composers, singers and distributors.
Uniting the country’s music stars under one roof, BLCPS organized a conference on Tuesday, February 6 at the Crystal Palace Auditorium in the capital’s Gulshan Club where Satoshi Watanabe, Honorary Advisor of CISAC (The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), delivered the keynote speech on the importance of CMOs and their function and activities in creating worldwide music intellectual property rights and collecting royalties. Mr Satoshi also conducted a three-day training in Dhaka to address BLCPS’s capacity requirements as the only CMO in Bangladesh that works with CISAC.
An expert in the field of copyright, Satoshi Watanabe has worked for more than 40 years in the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers, and Publishers - JASRAC. Between 2016-2022, Mister Watanabe served as the Asia Pacific Committee Chairman in CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers; and currently serves as CISAC’s Asia Pacific Honorary Advisor.
In an exclusive interview with Dhaka Courier at the event, Satoshi Watanabe shared his experience of exploring the activities of BLCPS, its prospects, his own experience of working with eminent and popular music artists in the country and more.
“Copyrights deal directly with respecting an individual’s intellectual creations and economic rights. It secures the diversities of culture and honours the creative ideas of the creators. CISAC is the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers and a nongovernmental and non-profit umbrella organisation that aims to cooperate with composers and lyricists, painters, sculptors, and all the creators from different art forms, to help with their Intellectual Property rights. I was the Asia Pacific Regional Committee Chairperson of CISAC, and during that time I started meeting many of our Asian colleagues, including the India Performing Right Society Limited (IPRS). This is my first-ever visit here to Bangladesh, and I am very happy to see the musicians and music creators, with whom I shared my analyses on the formation and operation of an active society for their
intellectual rights.”