Just typical

Published: October 12, 2008 at 11:20am

Why am I not surprised?

The Times, Saturday, 11th October 2008

One Productions broadcast music without a licence

The Labour Party’s multimedia company One Productions Ltd will have to pay damages to The Performing Right Society of London after having been found guilty of broadcasting music without the necessary licence and without paying royalties. Dingli Co. International Ltd, the local representative of The Performing Right Society, claimed in its writ that the station had broadcast musical works that were covered by copyright starting in 1994. One Productions had not applied for a licence from The Performing Right Society to broadcast the music, which licence was required in terms of the law governing copyright in Malta.

As a result, One Productions violated the authors’ copyright and failed to pay the royalties that were due when the work was played on the radio station. One Productions admitted to broadcasting the music but said that it was common for it to receive CDs from their producers to be broadcast. As a result the company did not feel it was bound to pay copyright fees when it was the authors of the musical works who had given the discs to it free of charge.

One Productions also pointed out that it did not make any profit from broadcasting music. However, Mr Justice Gino Camilleri said it was the responsibility of the radio station to ensure that the performing rights were covered by a licence. In conclusion the Court found that One Productions had broadcast music without a licence. The case was put off for the liquidation of damages due.




11 Comments Comment

  1. david s says:

    Daphne – Your magazines distributed with the Malta Independent are really a cut above the rest in terms of design and content, Town, Flair, Taste. Just read Town, really impressed. Not so the newspaper itself, poor content, poor design – old news, not a “news”paper really. You actually prove this yourself by constantly quoting articles from the Times, but never from the Independent !
    I know for a fact from several newsagents that people buy the Independent only when there is one of your magazines with it . Perhaps you shoud take over as editor, oops MB wont allow that :)

  2. Corinne Vella says:

    “the company did not feel it was bound to pay copyright fees when it was the authors of the musical works who had given the discs to it free of charge.”

    Are they being coy, deliberately disingenuous, or are they just in the wrong line of business?

    They don’t seem to know the difference between the intellectual rights to a piece of music and the physical CD on which it is recorded.

  3. Aidan Zammit Lupi says:

    This is the comment I left on the Times website – I got there pretty late so few people will probably ever read it… Anyway, I thought I’d post it here:

    Excellent work! Music is the result of a lot of hard work and must be paid for. Performing rights are not optional or subject to what a tv company “feels”. Whether the use of songs is considered as advertising for the artist is totally beside the point. A tv station has the right to choose the music it uses for its programs, but any music it chooses to transmit is subject to payment of performing rights. If you don’t want to pay, don’t use the music.

    These rights do not go to the singer or performing musicians. They go to the writers of the music and lyrics. They go to the publishers. They are often the only source of income for composers, lyricists and publishers. Usually these people work behind the scenes and get little “advertising” benefits from the use of their work.

    The TV company might not directly make profits from the use of music, but can you imagine a tv channel without music? It is essential – a vital component that contributes to the success of a program.

    A TV company can itself be the publisher of music used in its productions. Mediaset and RAI are huge publishers here in Italy. They finance and produce a lot of the music they use on their TV stations. That way they pay performing rights but get a lot of them back. They can also profit through use on other channels, radio, cd sales, legal web downloads, live performances and other ways.

  4. jenny says:

    @ Daphne
    I buy the Independent on Sunday just because of the high quality magazines excluding “First” as I find this magazine below standard and rather boring. I prefer the “circle” distributed with “The Sunday Times” than “First”. Is there any chance that you take over the Publication of “first”? I think that you would make a better job of it.

    [Daphne – I’d better not answer this….]

  5. Luca says:

    I couldn’t agree more with David!!
    My family only gets The Independent because there are your pieces, and now I also entice them to read the always far-fetched, redundant pieces of Beniot. Daphne, please take over as editor……it might save the paper, really.

  6. Tonio Farrugia says:

    I’ll second that!

  7. Luca – you can read Daphne`s pieces and the ridiculous but fascinating Benoit online.
    Unfortunately, that doesn`t solve the problem of the magazines.

  8. Gerald says:

    I have to second all comments here regarding Town magazine – it’s a brilliant job and well done. Regarding copyright I’m aware that ALL stations have apparently been broadcasting music without a licence and that the ONE Radio issue was a test case. So it’s unfair just to single them out.

  9. Mario Debono says:

    Daphne. Magazines are excellent, except or the glaring omission in the last Town. Not everyone is the saint they want people to think in business. But yes, your magazines are a cut above the rest. By the way, i find that the addition of a tiny bit of fresly ground noce moscato makes vitello tonnato sparkle, not just shine. I learnt it from an Italain chef, a count to boot, who runs a very good restaurant in Ravenna.

    [Daphne – Nobody’s claiming sainthood. Please be more specific as to the glaring omission.]

  10. Luca says:

    @ M. Mifsud

    I know I can read the pieces on internet, in fact that’s what I normally do. Nevertheless, my parents prefer to have the paper at home, so they just buy it. They purchase The Independent for Daphne and The Times for the news. (Even though the latter isn’t anymore as good as it used to be… Steve Mallia, to me, was not the best of options to replace Lawrence Grech.)

  11. mat555 says:

    Daphne do you think pbs/media.link and all other radio/tv stations in malta work differently from super one?

    [Daphne – Give some examples, please.]

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