Performing tricks
Nothing comes for free, but some people make it a habit to escape from paying their dues, or at least ensuring that they are allowed to do so. I encounter that in my role as a locally published author. Published works are covered by copyright for a...
Nothing comes for free, but some people make it a habit to escape from paying their dues, or at least ensuring that they are allowed to do so. I encounter that in my role as a locally published author. Published works are covered by copyright for a number of years. That is why every book shows the year in which it is released for sale with details of to whom the copyright belongs.
Occassionally, one of my stories or poems is selected for publication in an anthology. Generally speaking I am approached to waive my copyright, even though the book in the making will be sold for a profit. Usually, though not always, that goes towards a good cause, such as further learning, so it's all right by me.
There was a case where whole books of mine were adapted for a specific audience without as much as notification of the fact to me, let alone a request for permission. I was peeved when that came to my knowledge.
But, on learning that the books were adapted for persons with a certain disability, I let it rest. Had I been approached I would have given my permission, anyway; so why raise a ruckus.
Radio stations are something else. Whenever any of my short stories or poems are to be read on one station or another, someone invariably phones me up to ask for my permission, which, of course, I gladly give. Public reading or onward publication carries one's works to more listeners and readers, which is what every author desires. For professional writers, public awareness comes before personal income. My experience is not by any means unique. It is shared by other Maltese authors.
Only a few of us make anything much out of their writing, anyway. But it is not acceptable to be taken for granted.
In other sectors of the arts the situation is far worse, particularly in some of the performing arts, such as music.
The music industry, it has to be said, is reasonably well organised. In every major country there is a performing rights society which strives to ensure that nothing is performed for free, in the sense that entertainment outlets pay performing rights for the music they play.
There is an established industry in this regard. It collects payments from entertainment outlets which it monitors on a broad basis to see what they are playing and so, what they owe.
Not everybody pays performing rights, in the same manner that not everybody pays their tax dues. Many of us avoid taxes by using the rules for their benefit. Some of us, still not a few, evade taxes by ignoring the rules and thereby break the law.
When it comes to performing rights there is no room for avoidance. Put simply, those who do not pay their performing rights are evading the rules, and thus breaking them. Thereby they harm those societies which collect performing rights. In addition they harm composers and musicians, who are paid back part of the dues collected by performing right societies.
Again, there are some societies who do not pay back as much as they should. Worse than that, there are musicians, singers and others in the music industry who do not know where the performing rights collected in respect of their hard created output are going.
Things are gradually becoming clearer in this regard on the local scene in the ironic sense that it is being revealed that there is a high extent of the lack of transparency regarding performing rights. The ministry in charge of culture has not intervened as yet, at least not openly. Still, judging by a detailed story which appeared in MaltaToday on April 19, it should; and without undue delay at that.
MaltaToday reported that royalties due to Maltese music artists may amount to as much as €200,000 for 2008 alone, yet efforts to establish how much of this has been paid out by the Performing Rights Society of the UK have been hampered by lack of transparent data.
The PRS was selected by the Malta government some time ago to be the collecting agent of performing rights. Whether such rights are paid in full, or whether there is evasion of them, a substantial amount is collected each year. This is estimated at €500,000. Around a third of that amount should be coming back to Malta, to be distributed among eligible bands, composers and singers.
Strangely in 2008, leading bands and singers received not a euro cent, not even the very little they had been receiving in previous years. They, therefore, questioned the situation, asking where the money has gone.
Nobody gave them a straight answer. The issue is clouded by the fact that the agents of the Performing Rights Society insist that they are not responsible for distributing the part that should be returned to Malta. Someone else seems to be.
Musical performers are trying to establish exactly who is responsible. More to the point, they are trying to determine how it could be that they, leaders in their field, did not receive anything.
Who did they ask? Nobody gives them a proper answer, whether by hiding under the cloak of the Data Protection Act, or by suggesting that it is not easy to monitor exactly what is being played on our broadcasting stations and in entertainment outlets.
Rather remarkably, artists who are trying to establish their rights and to fight to see them observed are being told, apparently not with tongue-in-cheek, that the situation is far clearer today, and will become clearer still in the future.
If a situation is clear when there is no transparency, no accounts are published, no satisfaction is given, how will it be when it is in darkness, I was asked by musicians and singers who briefed me on the subject.
Something jars and, I feel, it is the responsibility of the ministry responsible for culture to get to the bottom of it.
And also of the Ministry of Finance, since part of performing rights due that flow abroad should be coming back to Malta.
We may be too small to have full professionals and those who perform (and write) do so far more out of love than for profit.
Nevertheless their rights should be respected by seeing that everybody pay their dues and that what should be transferred to the performers themselves, does reach them fairly. The story continues.
Occassionally, one of my stories or poems is selected for publication in an anthology. Generally speaking I am approached to waive my copyright, even though the book in the making will be sold for a profit. Usually, though not always, that goes towards a good cause, such as further learning, so it's all right by me.
There was a case where whole books of mine were adapted for a specific audience without as much as notification of the fact to me, let alone a request for permission. I was peeved when that came to my knowledge.
But, on learning that the books were adapted for persons with a certain disability, I let it rest. Had I been approached I would have given my permission, anyway; so why raise a ruckus.
Radio stations are something else. Whenever any of my short stories or poems are to be read on one station or another, someone invariably phones me up to ask for my permission, which, of course, I gladly give. Public reading or onward publication carries one's works to more listeners and readers, which is what every author desires. For professional writers, public awareness comes before personal income. My experience is not by any means unique. It is shared by other Maltese authors.
Only a few of us make anything much out of their writing, anyway. But it is not acceptable to be taken for granted.
In other sectors of the arts the situation is far worse, particularly in some of the performing arts, such as music.
The music industry, it has to be said, is reasonably well organised. In every major country there is a performing rights society which strives to ensure that nothing is performed for free, in the sense that entertainment outlets pay performing rights for the music they play.
There is an established industry in this regard. It collects payments from entertainment outlets which it monitors on a broad basis to see what they are playing and so, what they owe.
Not everybody pays performing rights, in the same manner that not everybody pays their tax dues. Many of us avoid taxes by using the rules for their benefit. Some of us, still not a few, evade taxes by ignoring the rules and thereby break the law.
When it comes to performing rights there is no room for avoidance. Put simply, those who do not pay their performing rights are evading the rules, and thus breaking them. Thereby they harm those societies which collect performing rights. In addition they harm composers and musicians, who are paid back part of the dues collected by performing right societies.
Again, there are some societies who do not pay back as much as they should. Worse than that, there are musicians, singers and others in the music industry who do not know where the performing rights collected in respect of their hard created output are going.
Things are gradually becoming clearer in this regard on the local scene in the ironic sense that it is being revealed that there is a high extent of the lack of transparency regarding performing rights. The ministry in charge of culture has not intervened as yet, at least not openly. Still, judging by a detailed story which appeared in MaltaToday on April 19, it should; and without undue delay at that.
MaltaToday reported that royalties due to Maltese music artists may amount to as much as €200,000 for 2008 alone, yet efforts to establish how much of this has been paid out by the Performing Rights Society of the UK have been hampered by lack of transparent data.
The PRS was selected by the Malta government some time ago to be the collecting agent of performing rights. Whether such rights are paid in full, or whether there is evasion of them, a substantial amount is collected each year. This is estimated at €500,000. Around a third of that amount should be coming back to Malta, to be distributed among eligible bands, composers and singers.
Strangely in 2008, leading bands and singers received not a euro cent, not even the very little they had been receiving in previous years. They, therefore, questioned the situation, asking where the money has gone.
Nobody gave them a straight answer. The issue is clouded by the fact that the agents of the Performing Rights Society insist that they are not responsible for distributing the part that should be returned to Malta. Someone else seems to be.
Musical performers are trying to establish exactly who is responsible. More to the point, they are trying to determine how it could be that they, leaders in their field, did not receive anything.
Who did they ask? Nobody gives them a proper answer, whether by hiding under the cloak of the Data Protection Act, or by suggesting that it is not easy to monitor exactly what is being played on our broadcasting stations and in entertainment outlets.
Rather remarkably, artists who are trying to establish their rights and to fight to see them observed are being told, apparently not with tongue-in-cheek, that the situation is far clearer today, and will become clearer still in the future.
If a situation is clear when there is no transparency, no accounts are published, no satisfaction is given, how will it be when it is in darkness, I was asked by musicians and singers who briefed me on the subject.
Something jars and, I feel, it is the responsibility of the ministry responsible for culture to get to the bottom of it.
And also of the Ministry of Finance, since part of performing rights due that flow abroad should be coming back to Malta.
We may be too small to have full professionals and those who perform (and write) do so far more out of love than for profit.
Nevertheless their rights should be respected by seeing that everybody pay their dues and that what should be transferred to the performers themselves, does reach them fairly. The story continues.