Rights To Royalty

'Unified Licensing Practice' is what made the global area impressed about Nepal sometimes back. The campaign about royalty to artists got higher altitude in Norweigin Copyright Development Association, when Finland's copyright expert, Tarja Koskine praised Nepal's movement. That was not limited there, there had been different experts who explained that they were impressed with Nepal's idea of 'Unified Licensing Practice'.

Royalty is strongly required in Nepal. At this era, when artists can no longer sustain on selling their music or keeping the movies unpublished. Framing out the current context, artists who spend their time and effort don't earn as people no longer buy CDS, cassette tapes. They don't earn when their creation gets on aired on radio or TV or any bars and restaurants. These artists might not even earn while doing their public performances, if they are new ones. That would give enough reason stating difficulty that any music professionals would have to face economically. This would entirely make copyright very important because they could actually identify the real owner behind the creation. As soon as the songwriter writes the verse, they get copyrighted into tangible form - be that recording, or fixed as printed sheet music. Now, this intangible asset gets protection, and the concerned authorities - be that Radio broadcast, or TV broadcast - they need to make payment every time they make use of this intangible asset.

Britney's hit song 'Baby One More Time' of 90's was played millions of times in radio. But, the fact is, Britney didn't get paid for the song. It was Max Martin, the song writer and the publsiher who actually got royalties from American Radios. So, since the singer didn't write the song herself; royalties were all granted to them. So, there had been the trend of granting royalty to the creator more than performer, which gradually started getting changed. Today, we see performer buying - the script, music and models for video and hence, they claim the song as theirs own. In case of mechanical royalties, the performers or the front men get the royalties on first hand. However, there could be cases where, performers turned out to be the last ones to make it all theirs. Biased attitude and nature would make true artist quit; they certainly would require some financial motivation behind.

Back in 2015, India started a campaign: “Stop Violations of The Performer's Right" demanding royalties that TVs and Radios have been using for commercial purpose. Leading singers took part over it, and threatened to take the issue down to court too. But still, there cannot be noted some huge significant changes. Ed Sheeran on the other hand claimed that royalty would not make huge fuss; 4 pound what Sheeran claimed to gain from Spotify as royalty. But, 433 streams on Spotify was, what he obtained, which actually gifted him more than $6.2 million. 

So, the way of perception differs, because for the same artist, who had been begging for space to play their number, when gets hit, would demand for royalty too. Sheeran's perception about minimal royalty but huge promotion reflects the very same.

Royalty indeed is wonderful issue and what the global world didn't knew was Nepalese are always good at designing policies. Artists should be granted royalties, but who are the artists? Singer? Writer? Music composer? Models? It's not that when a singer sings a song, the song belongs all to him. The ratio and fraction of sharing has to be identified. When it comes to music, it is not like book, where single or multiple writers would gain the credit. Again, we are living in such area, where the artists need to beg media houses to play their tracks or videos. Despite wonderful productions, not unless the singer comes and begs to media houses, their songs are not going to get on aired - and we discuss about royalty.

Royalty indeed is a right; but it is important to ensure fair and unbiased means, ensuring everyone’s justice.

Published in The Rising Nepal's Friday Supplement of July 27, 2018.