ヾ(゜Д゜)ノ"英字新聞

JASRAC told to halt monopoly practices
The Fair Trade Commission has ordered the Japanese Society of Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers to stop its practice of signing music copyright fees contracts with broadcasters in a manner that prevents other companies from entering the copyright-management business.
JASRAC has a blanket arrangement with NHK and commercial TV stations in which the broadcasters are authorized to air all songs and music pieces whose copyrights are managed by the society. In return, the TV stations pay the society 1.5 percent of their broadcast business revenue.
Since broadcasters can have unlimited use of the pieces if they pay a lump-sum user fee to the society, concluding contracts with other copyright-management companies increases their costs.
The FTC found few songs whose copyrights are managed by JASRAC's competitors have been broadcast, in a suspected violation of the Antimonopoly Law.
Shibuya Ward, Tokyo-based JASRAC said Friday it would appeal the decision. Its President Mamoru Kato said at a press conference the FTC is "wrong in terms of both factual finding and the application of the law."
During the investigation, the FTC found eLicense Inc., a music copyright-management company based in Minato Ward, Tokyo, had been excluded from the market.
In October 2006, eLicense was commissioned by a major record label to manage the copyright of some songs of popular singers, including Ai Otsuka and Kumi Koda.
But those songs were scarcely broadcast. The situation did not improve, even after eLicense waived its copyright fees for the first three months of the contract.
The record label terminated the contract with eLicense in January 2007.
JASRAC had long monopolized the music copyright-management business, but enactment of a law on the business in 2001 dissolved the monopoly and allowed other companies to enter the market.
Nevertheless, JASRAC still effectively monopolizes the market. In fiscal 2007, JASRAC collected about 20.6 billion yen from broadcasters in copyright fees, while eLicense collected just several tens of thousands of yen.
The FTC plans to convey specific improvement measures to JASRAC some time after Monday.
The measures are expected to include creating an option for broadcasters in which they would be able to distribute a portion of the copyright fee to other copyright management companies, based on the ratio of how many JASRAC-managed songs have been broadcast to those managed by other companies.
Kato said: "[The legal concept of] umbrella agreements has been established internationally. We'll fight it out [to defend our stance]."