MoIC directed to manage music royalty payment

The Legislature-Parliament's Development Committee Tuesday directed the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) and all related government and non-government agencies along with the Ministry of Culture, tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) to make all necessary arrangements to raise royalty of music from the user companies and hand it over to the lyricists, musicians, singers and writers – within one month.

The Committee chairman Rabindra Adhikari asked the concerned authorities to provide the royalty to the artistes as per the Copyright Act, 2002, and submit the progress report to the Development Committee in every three months.

The parliament body in November 2014 had directed the MoIC to form a mechanism for effective implementation of royalty provisions made in the Copyright Act, 2002.

In response, the Ministry had constituted a special task force which drafted standards for royalty distribution, 2072 and submitted to the MoTCA.

The MoTCA has formed the Royalty Direction and Monitoring Committee while the MoIC has been preparing a draft for artistes' identity card.

"The MoTCA is directed to activate the Monitoring Committee and submit the progress report to the committee," read the decision of the committee.

Adhikari issued a special direction to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers to make provisions to set penalties and punishments for individuals, organizations and companies who did not adhere to the existing legal provisions.

The committee also directed the Ministry of Home Affairs to form a Copyright Police Cell.

Speaking at the committee meeting, Minister for Information and Communications Sherdhan Rai informed that the ministry would immediately work to make necessary arrangements required for the collection and distribution of music royalty.

"I would like to announce before the parliament body that the ministry will get down to works immediately to implement the legal provisions related to the royalty collection and distribution," he said.

He informed that the Ministry had completed the working procedure for artistes' identity card distribution and it was drafted in close coordination with the MoTCA.

Artistes present in the meeting lambasted the government for its inefficiency to implement the Copyright Act effectively even after 14 years of its promulgation.

They criticised Nepal Telecom and Ncell as the two largest telecommunication companies in the country did not follow the legal provision to pay the music royalties even though they earned huge profit.

Yadav Kharel, chairman of Music Royalty Collection Society, said that the commercial companies in Nepal had long been exploiting the music artistes.

"They have violated both economic and moral rights of the artistes. It's happening because the concerned government authorities have turned a blind eye to our concerns," he said.

Musician and singer Suresh Adhikari said that failure in royalty collection had not only victimised the artistes but it meant the state was also losing revenue.

“If any company or organisation liable to pay the music royalty doesn’t pay the due amount, there should be a provision not to renew such entity,” he demanded.

Singer and media person Komal Oli urged the government to keep music and film under the same ministry in order not to make any discriminate between the two disciplines. Currently, music and film fall under MoIC and MoTCA respectively.