Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In Ireland, any outlet that wishes to ‘make There are, however, systems and
available’ works that are protected under processes in place to generate playlist
the Copyright Act and are owned by data from outlets such as radio and
IMRO’s members must apply for a license television and then extrapolate the
to make those works available publicly. ‘overall’ statistics. This might seem like a
Similarly, outlets are required to obtain good compromise and, in fact, it is a good
permission from the PPI (and thereby from system for established, well-informed and
RAAP) for public performances of the developed artists, writers and performers
actual performance as IMRO members are as their works are well known and
not necessarily RAAP/PPI members and adequately reported. Indeed, as will be
vice versa. A similar arrangement exists, illustrated, it is a system unfairly weighted
or will exist, in most jurisdictions where in favour of the established sector but to
legislation is enacted. the detriment of the developing group of
artists, writers and performers.
In this regard, outlets likely to require a
license when ‘making available’ Unfortunately, the limitations accidentally
copyrighted works include radio and created by the systems and processes
television broadcasters; public houses, used by Organisations like IMRO are by
hotels, and other venues where music is definition likely to overlook a certain
performed either live or pre-recorded; section of their members from the
Limitations in the Distribution of Public Performance Royalties in Ireland - Ron Healy (ronhealyx@gmail.com) Page 4
2
This is the case in stations where a two-day per It would then be a simple task to scale the
month sample of data is used to calculate the entire system to monitor the output of
distribution, with the assumption made that the rest International broadcasters. Why is this
of the month is likely to have included the same
important? There are some interesting
pieces. This is patently absurd, particularly in an
ever-changing radio environment statistics which serve to illustrate the
Limitations in the Distribution of Public Performance Royalties in Ireland - Ron Healy (ronhealyx@gmail.com) Page 6
reasons and the potential scale of the shown in their 2007 results. Similarly,
long-term benefit to the members of one might expect the figures for other
IMRO/RAPP and the Irish economy in jurisdictions to be higher than €450,000
general: (USA), €900,000 (EU countries
combined), €400,000 (Rest of the
1. The Royalty collection Industry in world)
Europe alone is worth an estimated €5
Billion in 2004 and is increasing in size. 4. According to the Music Industry
This excludes the rest of the World. governing body, “Revenues from public
China is currently undergoing a shift to performance and broadcasting income
an economy that protects intellectual grow incrementally every year”i so
property, while the USA is considering there is ever more reason for both more
extending its public performance accurate and more widespread public-
legislation to include performers, not performance playlist data 3.
just writers.
5. “The fact that Irish people use
2. IMRO collects only approximately English is often cited as increasing our
€3.3 million in royalties from affiliated vulnerability to Anglo-American mass
Organisations in the rest of Europe culture. This is so, but it also increases
(including the UK) in 2007 [3], our opportunities in the vast English-
suggesting that Irish-originated content speaking market, the most affluent in
accounted for only a fraction of one the World" (former Irish Cultural
percent of radio/television output and Minister Michael D. Higgins, 1999)
live performances in these jurisdictions.
Given the success of Irish-originated 6. The fact that there is a huge
Artists, this is obviously open to debate, Diaspora of Irish people and their
particularly in the US and UK which both descendents, particularly in the UK and
have much larger royalty revenues US, would lead to the inevitable
generated from broadcast sources. conclusion that a disproportionate
IMRO itself admits that it faces major percentage of the output from their
obstacles trying to recover royalties for broadcasters would have some Irish
its members from public performances content, in comparison to the output of
abroad because it cannot quantify other demographic sectors and the
them. owners of this content are legally
entitled to fair recompense for such
3. In the UK market, ‘Irish-originated’ use.
Artists were recently ranked a
cumulative third place in the overall The problem with all of the above is that
sales statistics [5] in all of the years there is no complete record of works
from 1986 – 1994, except 1989 when broadcast. There is nothing in legislation
Irish Artists were ranked 4th overall in that suggests that owners of the copyright
terms of sales. It is also claimed in [5] of any work can be treated any differently
that Irish artists are considered by than the owners of another work, in the
Industry observers to be the 5th highest same jurisdiction. In fact, that would be
ranked demographic in terms of patently unfair. Therefore, the owners of
combined International repertoire. If content broadcast on UK and US channels
radio output reflects, to an extent, are entitled to the same royalty rate no
repertoire and sales statistics then it matter what their Nationality.
would be logical to assume that Irish-
originated Artists made up a Conversely, the owners of content
comparatively large proportion of broadcast by Irish broadcasters are
public-performances in, at least, the UK entitled to the appropriate royalty
and the US. From IMRO’s annual results,
it is apparent that – especially 10 years 3
From "The threat becomes the opportunity", speech
on from these statistics – income from by John Kennedy, CEO and Chairman IFPI, MIDEMNET
UK public-performance royalties should Keynote speech, 22 January 2005
be a lot higher than the €1.5 million http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_views/view013.ht
ml
Limitations in the Distribution of Public Performance Royalties in Ireland - Ron Healy (ronhealyx@gmail.com) Page 7
according to the percentage of works that billion in 2004 collection totals. The UK
they own. Therein lies one of the potential collected close to €850 million in
obstacles to such a system. Authors/Publishers royalties alone. If Irish
content was to account for only 1% of the
Irish radio output does not generally real ownership of the content that was
consist of Irish material. This is not a used to generate UK royalties, then in
secret. In fact, the legislation that governs 2004 the income due to Irish societies
the issuing of broadcast licenses would have been €7.5 million. Instead,
specifically includes provisions for license €1.3 million was collected.
applicants to allocate a percentage of their
output for ‘Irish’ content. This ‘Irish’ Given that Irish-originated content is
content does not only include music but considered to be the 5th highest-ranked
also current affairs, talk shows etc. The contributor to International repertoire and
percentage of ‘Irish’ content required in that UK sales output, which might be
many cases is 20%. Again, this is not expected to somewhat reflect, or in some
music. A broadcaster may decide to cases be reflected by, broadcast output
honour the requirement for 20% Irish from commercial broadcasters, for the
content with 20% of their output being period to 1994 (and presumably since then
News, Chat shows, Current affairs. Of their to a similar extent) ranked Irish content as
music, it might be 100% non-Irish. Also, cumulatively 3rd in sales, it would seem
some broadcasters do not have this likely that Irish content on UK broadcasters
requirement attached to their license so would exceed 1%. Each additional 1%
their Irish output could theoretically be nil. represents an increase on 2004 figures of
A casual observation of the playlist of any €8.5 million in combined royalties. This, of
commercial radio station, including the course, pales almost into insignificance
National Broadcaster (RTE) will illustrate when the US and the Rest of the World are
that a very large proportion of their output considered.
is International, mostly originating in the
UK and US as would be expected. The likelihood is that, if a situation arose
where perfect, accurate and complete
This would suggest that the collective broadcast data was available, the overall
rights societies that operate in the Irish royalties due to Irish content owners – in
industry would be expected to distribute the Music Publishing Industry alone –
their collected license fees to a proportion would far exceed the outflow from the Irish
of non-Irish content owners. One might market.
estimate that as much as 80% of royalties
generated by Irish collective rights agents
actually does not belong to any Irish HOW DOES WATERMARKING WORK?
content owner and should therefore be At its very simplest, the concept of digital
transferred to affiliates abroad. For IMRO, audio watermarking can be likened to the
that would amount to approximately €26 process whereby a watermark is added to
million of the €33 million it generated in a banknote to help prove its validity. In the
Ireland in 2007. digital era, many Internet users will be
familiar with images reproduced on web
This is, naturally, an unpalatable pages with the photographer or copyright
possibility for the Irish industry. However, details superimposed on the actual image.
it is likely that if the broadcast data In both cases, the idea of the watermark is
provided were more complete and similar: validation of
accurate Internationally, especially given identification/authenticity. There are
the size of the EU and US markets, we digital audio watermark techniques with
might expect to see a rather large net the same motivation, namely validation of
inflow to Ireland. the identification of a piece of audio.
However, watermarks in audio can be
The combined total generated by used for a wide range of purposes such as
collection societies for Authors, Producers, copy prevention, tracing of the source of
Publishers and Performers in Europe alone illegal copies or simply adding information
was c€5 billion in 2004, and growing. of value to audio.
France alone accounts for almost €1.25
Limitations in the Distribution of Public Performance Royalties in Ireland - Ron Healy (ronhealyx@gmail.com) Page 8
[4] “The Economy of Culture in Europe, Study prepared for the European Commission (Directorate-General for Education and
Culture)” October 2006. Page 246.
[5] Paula Clancy and Mary Twomey. “Clusters in Ireland: The Irish Popular Music Industry”, published by the National Economic and
Social Council, November 1997, page 7, para 3.
[6] Ron Healy and Joe Timoney. “300 years of copyright: have we gone full circle”, Social-Legal Studies Association Annual
Conference, De Montfort University, Leicester, 7–9 April 2009.
[7] K. M. Short and R. A. Garcia. “Signal Analysis using the Complex Spectral Phase Evolution (CSPE) Method”, Audio Engineering
Society 120th Convention, May 2006, Paris, France.
[8] Jian Wang, Ron Healy and Joe Timoney. “Digital Audio Watermarking by Magnitude Modification of Frequency
Components Using the CSPE Algorithm”, China-Ireland International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies,
Maynooth, Ireland, August 2009 (Accepted for Publication).