ACTION Believes Direct License By Song Creators Doesn't Break Rules

JAKARTA - The All-Indonesian Composite Association (AKSI) responded to a statement by the National Collective Management Institute (LMKN) which called the direct license system a practice that was not in accordance with Law No. 28 of 2014 concerning Copyright.

Dharma Oratmangun as Chair of the LMKN stated that the practice of collecting royalties by parties who do not have a permit from the Ministry of Law and Human Rights can be punished.

"If there is no operational permit from the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, it is forbidden to withdraw royalties to commercial users," said Dharma Oratmangun at the LMKN Office, Kuningan, South Jakarta, Wednesday, January 17.

"There is a law, the attitude of LMKN is based on law. Therefore, those who do not have a permit and so on can be subject to criminal penalties and fines," he continued.

Meanwhile, ACTION through the Instagram account officially assesses that the direct license they apply is not regulated in the Copyright Law (UUHC), so it cannot be declared as a wrong practice.

Direct license is a direct royalty payment license system between creators and copyright users. This is not regulated in the Copyright Law so that in our opinion, direct license does not violate the law, instead this is a solution to overcome LMKN's weakness in collecting live performance royalties," the ACTION statement reads.

"In this case, we state that Direct License is a licensing and royalty payment system that is done PRIBADIally between songwriters and copyright users. Because direct license is a system and not an institution, in our opinion, this IS NOT VIOLATING the Copyright Law," he continued.

According to ACTIONS, based on Article 87 paragraph 1 UUHC, songwriters are not required to become LMK members to receive royalties for performing rights.

Article 87 paragraph 1 of the Copyright Law concerning LMK states To obtain the economic rights of each Creator, the holder of Copyright, the owner of the Related Rights is a member of the Collective Management Institute in order to attract reasonable rewards from users who take advantage of Copyright and Related Rights in the form of commercial public services, reads the ACTION statement. If you pay close attention to the statement of Article 87 paragraph 1 UUHC concerning LMK, to obtain the economic rights of each creator, there is no word that you are obliged to become a member of the LMK, so in our opinion, if there is a creator who gets a source of royalties from the direct license system and gets economic rights from this system then this is SAH only and does not violate the law.

The association chaired by Piyu Padi also highlighted Article 119 UUHC. They considered that the ban only applies to LMKs that do not have permits, and are not songwriters.

"Article 119 UUHC only applies to LMKs without permission but makes a Royalty withdrawal, it does not apply to the Creator (the intellectual property owner) if he receives or withdraws the use of his songs commercially. So the LMKN statement is NOT TRUE," said ACTION.

'Friends, songwriters, don't be afraid of wrong LMKN statements. Is it time as the owner of our rights to be fined 1 billion when asking for rights? Direct License is the best system to overcome LMK and LMKN's poor performance in withdrawing performance royalties from live performance.'