Controversial copyright provision suspended

by Willy Carrera Loza

The Cabinet Council has approved a resolution suspending one of the royalties provisions of Panama's copyright law, which otherwise would have gone into effect on January 2. The suspended section would have required taxis, hotels, restaurants, discotheques, radio stations and all other commercial enterprises that play music in the course of doing business to pay artists and composers for using their songs. According to international agreements to which Panama is a party and the practices in most countries, broadcasters normally pay royalties for the songs they play, but piracy has been the norm in the Panamanian radio industry. However, the practical difficulty of monitoring usage makes the charging of royalties for playing music cassettes in a taxicab or piping the Hollywood Strings into elevators unheard of elsewhere in the world.

Vice-President Arturo Vallarino said that the cabinet heard a special plea from the Education Ministry, whose representatives complained of problems that would be created if the royalty fees announced by the Panamanian Society of Authors and Composers (SPAC, by its Spanish initials) went into effect. The group sought to charge royalties for both Panamanian and international musical works.

Vallarino argued that the suspension was necessary because conditions required by the copyright law, including agreements about the amount of royalty for each musical work broadcast, have not been met. He said that the cabinet ordered a complete legal review of the situation after reaching a consensus that the copyright law reforms passed during the Pérez Balladares administration were not intended to create new taxes upon businesses.

The Panama News interviewed SPAC's president, Christian García, after the decision to suspend the law's operation. García appealed to citizens for support: "It's an important priority for us to open channels of communication and understanding, based upon the principles of established law, and upon the genuine rights of those who work as intellectual creators, who have been denied the benefits that are due them since the copyright law was approved in 1994. We fought arduously for many years to get this law passed. We have achieved public recognition for composers and writers, making it possible for them to gain acceptance not only at the national level, but to lay the foundations for recognition on the international level as well."

WC: What is SPAC?

CG: The Panamanian Society of Authors and Composers is a not-for-profit civic association, which is the entity that bargains collectively under the provisions of Title IX of Law 15 of 1994, Law 261 of October 3, 1995, and the pertinent legal provisions and statutes approved by the National Copyright Directorate in its Resolution 8 of December 30, 1996.

WC: What does SPAC do?

CG: SPAC collects the royalties for the works whose administration has been entrusted to us, applying duly publicized fees to each group that uses them. Payments for the use of works abroad are collected by foreign associations, with whom we have reciprocal contracts.

WC: Who pays royalties?

CG: The users of the works pay the royalties. The users include television and radio broadcasters, bars, restaurants, discotheques, hotels, and in general any person, natural or juridical, that's responsible for public communication, reproduction or distribution of said works.

WC: Who represents SPAC in the world? And who does SPAC represent in Panama?

CG: The works in SPAC's administrative repertoire are represented around the world by similar societies that have signed reciprocal agreements. To name a few of these, there are SADAIC in Argentina, SABAM in Belgium, Chile's SCD, the Cuban ACDAM, APDAYC in Peru, Israel's ACUM, the Republic of China's CHA and the Venezuelan SACVEN.

WC: Who gets the money that you collect?

CG: The money, except for an administrative discount for the costs incurred, is sent to the associated authors, or in the case of foreign works that have been used in this country, to the foreign associations to which the authors belong.