Restaurant, lounge and bar homeowners, and even malls and different enterprise institutions, whether or not massive or small, beware.
Whether or not it’s dwell band performances or broadcasting music being performed over the radio or by way of MP3 or the pc, taking part in copyrighted music to entertain the shoppers and bettering the ambiance of the place with out first securing the required license from the copyright proprietor and paying the required charges constitutes copyright infringement.
Only in the near past, the Supreme Courtroom as soon as once more championed the unique rights of musical artists to their works.
In an en banc choice, the SC ordered COSAC Inc., which owns and operates Off the Grill Bar and Restaurant in Quezon Metropolis to pay damages to the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (Filscap) for the unlicensed and unauthorized public efficiency of copyrighted musical work.
Filscap is a non-stock, non-profit company tasked to implement and defend the performing rights of copyright homeowners of musical works.
Again in 2005 and 2006, a consultant from Filscap found that Off the Grill performed copyrighted music with out acquiring from Filscap a license or paying the corresponding charges. When COSAC refused to safe the required license, Filscap sued COSAC for infringement of copyright and damages, alleging that COSAC’s refusal to safe the license and its continued use of copyrighted music with out the requisite performing rights constitutes acts of infringement.
Underneath the Mental Code of the Philippines, one of many financial rights of a copyright proprietor is the unique proper to hold out, authorize or forestall the general public efficiency of the work.
The identical regulation additionally permits homeowners of copyright and associated rights or their heirs to designate a society of artists, writers, composers and different proper holders to collectively handle their financial or ethical rights on their behalf. Such societies should be accredited by the Mental Property Workplace.
However COSAC denied committing infringement, saying it had no data about what the band members would sing as a part of their efficiency, and since songs as soon as aired and carried out turn out to be public property.
Filscap claims that the members of the dwell bands carried out musical works with out the consent of the copyright holders. It added that COSAC, because the one which finally benefitted from the performances, ought to have secured the required authority, and never the dwell bands themselves.
Filscap additionally identified that because the proprietor of the institution, COSAC consented to the general public efficiency of those dwell bands utilizing copyrighted music.
Other than dwell music, it famous that COSAC additionally performed background music and music by means of screens or projectors that are additionally acts of infringement upon the general public performing rights owned by Filscap.
It mentioned the taking part in of the music is clearly for revenue since COSAC employed these bands to play music and sing songs in its institution to reinforce its clients’ consuming and eating expertise and to enhance the overall ambiance.
Filscap nonetheless performed the legal responsibility on COSAC and never on the dwell bands, explaining that COSAC can not feign ignorance and declare that it had no concept that the bands would play copyrighted music.
It burdened that COSAC clearly had management over what music is performed, including that COSAC can simply cease the band from persevering with with its efficiency or get them organized to alter the track, in the identical means that if it doesn’t just like the track taking part in on the radio or MP3 participant, it will possibly simply flip mentioned system off or change to a different station or track.
Right here, the SC mentioned that the infringing actions had been dedicated in two methods: efficiency by a dwell band and taking part in of sound recordings.
The Courtroom ordered COSAC to pay Filscap P300,000 in temperate damages. The quantity was computed based mostly on the 500-seating capability of the restaurant, royalty charge of P170 per day for lounges or bars and pubs which play copyrighted songs dwell and mechanically, that solely 25 copyrighted songs had been recognized to have been performed with out the requisite license and cost of charges, amongst others.
It mentioned that the unauthorized taking part in of copyrighted music by COSAC was not executed privately, neither is the institution a charitable or spiritual establishment, and that the taking part in was industrial in nature and can work in opposition to the copyright proprietor’s pursuits, nor does the taking part in represent truthful use.
The SC identified that COSAC is a major and secondary infringer. As proprietor of Off the Grill, it allowed the fee of infringing acts when it permitted musical artists or bands to carry out copyrighted music (secondary infringer), and performed sound recordings as background music (major infringer) with out first procuring a license from the copyright homeowners or assignees of the songs and paying the charge.
In its choice penned by Justice Ramon Hernando, the Courtroom mentioned that by doing so, COSAC unduly enriched itself when it allowed the taking part in in public of copyrighted songs which in flip paved the way in which for it to generate extra revenue with none extra expense to it. This, it burdened, contravenes the intention of copyright legal guidelines to guard and compensate authors and the artists, in addition to encourage them to supply extra creations for the eventual good thing about the general public.
In 2022, the SC additionally deciding en banc ordered Anrey Inc. to to pay temperate damages to Filscap for the unlicensed public efficiency of copyrighted songs on Filscap’s repertoire.
The case arose after a Filscap consultant monitored that two branches of Scorching Plate Restaurant in Baguio, each owned by Anrey, had been taking part in copyrighted music owned by Filscap. It then filed a copyright infringement case with damages in opposition to Anrey.
However in accordance with Anrey, it merely performed no matter was being broadcasted on the radio they had been tuned in.
However the Excessive Tribunal, citing US jurisprudence, held that the act of taking part in radio broadcasts containing copyrighted music by means of using loudspeakers (radio-over-loudspeakers), is, in itself, a efficiency.
The Courtroom defined {that a} radio reception creates a efficiency separate from the published. Thus, it’s immaterial if the broadcasting station has been licensed by the copyright proprietor for the reason that reception turns into a brand new public efficiency requiring separate safety.
It added that free use by industrial institutions of radio broadcasts is past the conventional exploitation of the copyright holder’s inventive work.
The SC additionally warned that given the present definition of what a public efficiency is, listeners of a radio station dangers, to some extent, copyright infringement.
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