Copyrights clarity sought before royalties are paid

The government has decided to make it obligatory for all radio and TV channels to pay royalties to artists in a Gazette notice effective March 2020, but implementation is complicated.

The Minister of Information and Mass Media and Minister of Higher Education Technology and Innovation, Dr. Bandula Gunawardana announced that all radio stations should pay Rs 20 and TV stations pay Rs 100 as royalties to artists when their music products are used. The regulations have been gazetted.

Royalties are payments of various types to owners of property for use of that property. Royalties are paid to owners of copyrighted music, for its use.

Harsha Bulathsinghala, managing director of the Authors Composers & Publishers Organisation of Sri Lanka ( ACPO) said even though the laws are introduced, the technical platform has not yet been finalised. “Before issuing royalties we need to clarify the copyrights,’’ he said.

“When there are two monitoring organisations the methods employed to monitor might differ, which will result in confusion among users. We are discussing the issue with the artists association.’’

He said, “at the moment this is a new concept so we should be aware of the process and by the end of this month we might be able to collect the necessary data. We, on behalf of our members, collect and remit all royalties to our members who are authors, composers, and music publishers after deducting our administrative costs’’.

The Outstanding Song Creator's Association’s ( OSCA), director, W. B. Ganegala, said according to the gazette notice, Rs 30 should be paid as royalties for a song broadcast on air and Rs 100 for TV.

He said the association has software to track broadcasts. This helps to pay lyricists, musicians and vocalists who are members.

There are plans to sign agreements with the radio and TV channels.

“More than 2,050 artists are registered in our organisation, which is 80% of all artists,’’ he said.

The director general of the National

Intellectual Property Office, Geethanjali Ranawaka, said the collective committees have agreed to the royalties. An earlier proposal to pay Rs 10 for radio broadcasts and Rs 30 for TV was rejected by the committee.

She said enforcement is difficult although artists must be compensated.

The law in June, 2019, was an improvement on the 2003 law. Other than for fair use, royalties must be paid for musical products used for commercial purposes.

Even though the gazette implies it will be implemented by March, 2020 there are some complications with the radio and TV stations she added.

Members of organisations are authorised to collect the payments and artists are entitled to complaint to the National Intellectual Property Office if they are not receiving payments.

These collective organizations are registered under the National Intellectual Property Office and are obliged to provide annual and monthly reports on payments. If a song belonging to a particular artist is broadcast and royalties are not paid, an artist can file a complaint to the office.

Lawsuits can also be filed according to the special gazette notice on intellectual property rights on June, 2019.

There are some difficulties as an artist is not able to individually monitor how many times a song is aired because there are 25 terrestrial TV stations and satellite stations, and around 42 radio stations.

Bobby G Boteju, said according to the prevailing law in Sri Lanka, artists should be paid royalties during their lifetime and 50 years after death. But there are problems with this because the same rights apply to the same property as the original owner, or his / her spouse and children even after the death of a particular author.

There is no proper mechanism to monitor this. This must be done through government intervention, Mr Boteju said.

Internationally, it is recommended to have one institution for copyrights and other institutions for performers, but in Sri Lanka it is different. According to section 36 of the law in 2003, these have been initiated. A proper mechanism should be set up to regulate the payment process.