| James Kon |

LOCAL business premises, restaurants, hotels, radio/television broadcasters and public performers who play both local and international music are required under the law to pay a public performance music licence fee to BruMusic to support the music industry and remunerate music creators.

BruMusic is a collective licensing body representing international and regional record producers.

BruMusic has also partnered with BeAT, a society for music composers and writers, to license on their behalf.

A public performance music licence is a licence to perform, show or play a work in the public. Public performances of music could be live, or by playing a recording, or by playing a broadcast that contains music content. These business activities all require a licence from the right holders.

International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) Regional Legal Officer Felix Yuen, representing the interest of 1,300 record companies across the globe, is speaking to the owners of local hotels, business premises and restaurants, as well as to broadcasters and the authorities, on the importance of music licensing and compliance of the copyright law.

He revealed, “One of our goals, apart from collecting the licence fee, is to further develop the local music scene.”

“Local talents can finally feel that they may utilise their talents to support a living, and also represent Bruneian music. It is in our mandate to bring up initiatives to vitalise the local music industry,” he said.

He added, “I have spoken to quite a number of commercial music users. Some have not heard of the need of proper music licensing. They would hope that more public awareness can be raised, which we are now trying to do. We are trying to get to as many users of music in Brunei Darussalam as possible.”

Yuen also added that the Attorney General’s Chambers is supportive of the protection and enforcement of copyright, and that he would like to see the cooperation being strengthened further.

In Brunei Darussalam, he explained, “The owner of copyright in a work – including musical work, literary work and sound recording – has exclusive right under S.18 of the Copyright Order 1999.

Brunei has also signed two very important international treaties, namely the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty in 2017, that protect right holders in the digital environment.

“The unauthorised usage of music in public performance and broadcasting in Brunei Darussalam may attract civil liability.”

Explaining about BruMusic, he said, “It is a collective licensing body representing international and regional record companies and producers in Brunei. It has also been authorised by BeAT (the collective licensing body for music composers and publishers) to collect remuneration on their behalf. The two collecting societies incorporated in Brunei, which represents local and international record producers and composers, authors, publishers, respectively signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for joint licensing in September 2017.”

A music licence from BruMusic would cover the vast majority of music usage.

It has already signed agreements with the biggest record labels and regional sister licensing societies, such as Public Performance Malaysia (PPM) and SELMI of Indonesia, to administer producers’ broadcasting and public performance rights in Brunei.

The agreements would cover the overwhelming majority of recordings used in Brunei.

BeAT Chairman Fathan Anuar said, “We are happy to partner with BruMusic on this, and we are very excited with the progress.”

BruMusic issues a rate card for public performance licences at different kinds of venues.