The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) announced on Feb. 2 that it plans to start collecting copyright fees from music school performances, commencing January 2018.

The controversial decision, which is expected to affect at first approximately 9,000 music schools run by major operators such as the Yamaha Music Foundation out of some 11,000 such schools across the country, has been met with negative reaction from those institutions.

The Copyright Act states that if a piece of music is performed in front of a large, unspecified number of people, then performance rights belong exclusively to the copyright holder -- often the composer of the piece.

Currently, JASRAC is in the process of tightening its policy on performance rights, and has already started collecting copyright fees from cultural centers, which offer lessons on musical instrument performances. The organization is thinking of extracting performance-related copyright fees that amount to 2.5 percent of the annual revenue received from music class tuitions -- and they have already started notifying relevant companies about their new policy, from late January onward.

Kenzo Ohashi, a managing director at JASRAC, has explained that performances at music schools cannot be exempted from copyright fees, because they are not applicable to the copyright fee exception for performances that are not for profit. In July, JASRAC plans to submit official documentation concerning its copyright-fee collection plans to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it will continue to discuss the issue with the music schools that will be affected.

In response to JASRAC's new stance on copyright fees, the music schools set up a council on Feb. 2 to discuss the matter further. A public relations representative from Yamaha Music Foundation stated, "Our music classes are purely educational. The issue of performance rights is irrelevant here."

Furthermore, a corporate lawyer commented, "The copyright fees would make the music lesson fees more expensive, and this will result in less people wanting to study music. There is a real concern that this move will have a detrimental effect on cultural development in this country."