Royalty Music Issues in Singapore's Context

[hanqiang1011]

Hi guys,

A question. Suppose we purchase royalty free music from these website:

TheAudioHub

https://zoomlicense.com/

Do we still need to apply the day license or corporate license from RIPS?

Please advise.

TIA.

[Jemhadar]

If it's royalty-free, no license needed from RIPS.

For zoomlicense, from their site it's only for Canada and US.

Cheers!

[engr]

Watch out for royalty free stuff, cuz COMPASS has proven that not all royalty free songs are excluded. I was consulted on one case with a famous royalty free music company but they backed out when COMPASS engaged them. It appears some artist would licence more than one party hence such issues happen so do check!

[xujia]

Hi hq,
It depends. If u buy royalty free & use the music in yr home, then u don't need additional licences. But if u buy royalty free & play them outside yr home. Ie at a shopping mall, etc, then that becomes a 'public performance' & a licence is required. It's the same for movies. U buy a blu ray and play it in yr company premises, then yr company need a public performance licence to enable its staff to play movies there. In short. If u buy the music or dvd & play at home, u don't need licence, but if u play outside yr home, then u need to get licence from MPLC(movies) or rips. Hope that clarifies

[akszaksz]

Hi hq,
It depends. If u buy royalty free & use the music in yr home, then u don't need additional licences. But if u buy royalty free & play them outside yr home. Ie at a shopping mall, etc, then that becomes a 'public performance' & a licence is required. It's the same for movies. U buy a blu ray and play it in yr company premises, then yr company need a public performance licence to enable its staff to play movies there. In short. If u buy the music or dvd & play at home, u don't need licence, but if u play outside yr home, then u need to get licence from MPLC(movies) or rips. Hope that clarifies

is playing royalty music indoor such as wedding banquet considered as public performance?

[alternus]

The concept is quite simple: all the music content creators (composers, lyricists, publishing companies) want to be paid every time their music is enjoyed (i.e. heard) by someone.

The royalty music that you buy only allows you (and only you alone) to enjoy (i.e. hear) it for unlimited number of times, so you are not supposed to let your banquet guests (who never pay for the music) enjoy (i.e. hear) it. If you want the banquet guests to enjoy the music, someone must pay for it (public performance licence, a.k.a. broadcast licence). In my opinion, this "someone" should be the venue owner (e.g. hotel management), or the event organizer (e.g. wedding couple). But if you are the one who produced a video that employed the royalty music, you may want to pay the broadcast licence for your client out of goodwill. That will be your business decision.

[akszaksz]

The concept is quite simple: all the music content creators (composers, lyricists, publishing companies) want to be paid every time their music is enjoyed (i.e. heard) by someone.

The royalty music that you buy only allows you (and only you alone) to enjoy (i.e. hear) it for unlimited number of times, so you are not supposed to let your banquet guests (who never pay for the music) enjoy (i.e. hear) it. If you want the banquet guests to enjoy the music, someone must pay for it (public performance licence, a.k.a. broadcast licence). In my opinion, this "someone" should be the venue owner (e.g. hotel management), or the event organizer (e.g. wedding couple). But if you are the one who produced a video that employed the royalty music, you may want to pay the broadcast licence for your client out of goodwill. That will be your business decision.

icic, but some royalty music i bought, they comes with public performance license (more expensive of course), but not for TV or Radio commercial broadcast.

To RIPS & MPS, Is it legal in the case?

[alternus]

icic, but some royalty music i bought, they comes with public performance license (more expensive of course), but not for TV or Radio commercial broadcast.

To RIPS & MPS, Is it legal in the case?

Difficult to answer your question because there are 2 convoluted pts in your question.

1) Currently in SG, public performance licence only comes under COMPASS's purview. COMPASS only represents the rights for composers and lyricists who registered with them (i.e. collect broadcast rights payment only for composers and lyricists). RIPS on the hand, represents the rights for music publishers (i.e. recording companies like Sony Music, Warner Music, etc), and currently they do no have public performance licensing (i.e. collect broadcast rights payment for music publishers) in SG. But that does not mean they will not have that in the future. Hence to your question on public performance licence, RIPS and MPS is not relevant.

So we are now talking only about COMPASS...

2)COMPASS will want to collect public performance payment for broadcast of any songs that are created by their registered composers and lyricists - regardless whether you bought the music with a public performance licence or not. You can try to argue/reason with COMPASS. My sensing is that they won't budge. But if you get the composer/lyricist to contact COMPASS, something favorable may come out of it. But I don't think it is worth the effort.
To get a better picture, supposed Dick Lee is your childhood friend and you'll like to play a song of which he is both the composer and lyricist, and Dick Lee has given you the permission to play the song at your dinner. COMPASS will still want you to pay the public performance licence if Dick Lee is registered with COMPASS... I dunno how much your childhood friend will get. But I do know that the employees and bosses at COMPASS need to draw a salary every month.

Anyway, music copyright is geographical. I.e. whatever music rights you buy (be it synchro rights, mech reproduction rights or broadcast rights) from an overseas-registered company off the internet will not be valid in SG if the music publisher, composer and/or lyricists of your royalty music are registered with RIP, MPS and/or COMPASS.
Double payment then? Sad to say...Yes.