News
Songwriters, composers’ works brazenly abused
View(s):- Celebrated lyricist Premakeerthi one of the worst affected
- Lack of payment culture says ex-Intellectual Property Director General
By Namini Wijedasa
Premakeerthi de Alwis
During his lifetime, acclaimed lyricist Premakeerthi de Alwis wrote a vast repertoire of songs. Hundreds of them are still performed on local and international stages, aired over electronic media and used in films and on reality shows. But there is a prolem.
Premakeerthi’s dependents are paid next to nothing for his songs. Nirmala, his widow, says she is not sent royalties by persons or organisations that exploit his work for commercial purposes. With no income of her own—she is now retired—she lives off the support of her son, their only child.
Mrs de Alwis does get a cheque every few months from one private broadcaster. It is never more than 1,500 rupees, she says. And the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) recently notified her that there is a payment in her name. Never before had the State broadcaster sent her royalties for her late husband’s songs.
“By law, the copyright for a song belongs to the lyricist and the composer of its music,” Mrs. de Alwis related, clearly upset. “But they don’t get their dues. The singers, who hold related rights, earn some income from musical shows and other performances. The lyricists and composers end up with nothing.”
“My husband wrote between 3,000 and 4,000 songs,” she said. “For Jothipala alone, he did more than 100 songs. For Victor Ratnayake, he did another 100. At least 300 to 400 of his creations are still very popular. So where are the royalties that the songwriter is legally entitled to?”
The disbursement of royalties is compulsory according to regulations promulgated in 2005 under the Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003. These regulations give the owner of a copyright the right to receive payment for authorising to carry out, among other things, a reproduction of his or her work, translation, adaptation, public performance, broadcasting or other communication to the public of the work. They also entitle a performer or producer of a sound recording or broadcasting organisation to receive payment.
A subsequent gazette dated 2011 even prescribed the amounts to be paid when songs were broadcast on television, radio, etc. Thus, a lyricist is entitled to three rupees per song aired on radio, the composer to three rupees for the same song and the performer a further three rupees. The amount is ten rupees each in the television category. It is a pittance by modern standards. But even this pittance is not forthcoming.
According to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Sri Lanka, there are 15 broadcasters operating television stations and 20 broadcasters operating FM radio stations in Sri Lanka. But according to artistes, less than five of them pay royalties to lyricists, composers or performers. Some paid for a period of time and stopped. The SLBC, by contrast, resumed the practice last year after a hiatus.
Under the law, payment can be made directly to the person entitled to it or to a “collective society”—also called a “collective management organization” (CMO)—in which such person is a member. The SLBC pays directly to the relevant persons. It can get complicated.
Sometimes it is a challenge to determine who the original copyright holder is. Some deceased copyright holders could have more than one family or several siblings so questions of entitlement arise. Postal addresses could be wrong. Two or more persons could have performed the original song, and so on.
“We are trying our utmost to pay royalties despite that fact that we, as an organisation with a large number of stations and employees, have a vast array of expenses and are in financial difficulty,” said Mayuri Abeysinghe, Deputy Director General (Commercial Services).
Calculating the royalties is an arduous task. Data is taken from each day’s playlist (for each station) and entered manually on to Excel sheets. A computer programme is currently being devised to make the task faster and more efficient. Cheques are drawn up only when a recipient notches up a minimum of Rs. 500. The laborious process, and the fact that the entitled amounts are often so little, means payments could take months to reach each artiste.
Sirasa Radio is another that remunerates individual artistes while Neth FM also honours its dues. But most others are silent. Even when broadcasters do pay royalties, there is no system by which artistes could check whether the disbursed amounts are correct and in tandem with the number of songs played per day. “There is no transparency,” said Rohana Weerasinghe, renowned music composer.
A common argument against royalties is that the relevant media institution cannot afford to pay them. The artistes do not accept this. “It is pathetic to see how some radio stations go to villages and dole out money to people in exchange for listening to them or for pasting a bumper sticker on a three-wheeler,” scoffed Thilak Hewakapuge, a Director in a CMO called Outstanding Song Creator’s Association (OSCA) “They earn around Rs, 60,000 for a 15 second advertising slot. But they cannot pay the people who create music for their existence.”
“It is the lack of a payment culture, because the law is very clear,” observes D.M. Karunaratne, former Director General of Intellectual Property. “There must be a law-abiding culture on the part of the users. From the copyright owners’ side, they must be aware of the law and their rights. And they must know how to manage their rights rather than blame anybody.”
“It’s a culture, it has to be a habit,” agrees Lucian Bulathsinhala, head of a CMO called Authors, Composers and Publishers Organisation (ACPO) of Sri Lanka. “In a civilised society, you always tend to pay the proper royalty because it’s a culture. In Sri Lanka, our people always tend to rob something from someone. That’s the culture. Radio, television, print media, they like to rob something from the other man and make money.”
Mr. Bulathsinhala brought out a letter to demonstrate just how little—if at all—some artistes were earning from the few stations that do pay. It read that he was entitled to Rs. 650 rupees for the entire two-year period from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2012. It did not itemise the payment and did not say what it was for.
“Can you accept this as a copyright payment?” he asked, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry.