Cholil Mahmud Calls Independent Musicians Must Have Knowledge About The Music Industry

JAKARTA - Cholil Mahmud was one of the speakers in a discussion entitled Royalti Rights Musician, Not Cuan Industri organized by the Federation of Indonesian Musician Unions (FESMI) and the Art Coalition at the House Pamulang ear, South Tangerang, Monday, October 21 night.

The musician who also serves as the Director of Research and Development of FESMI sees the importance of understanding the music industry for musicians, including those who are not members of the music label or commonly called independent musicians.

Cholil, who started his music career with Greenhouse Effect (ERK) in the mid-2000s, said understanding how the music industry is running could help musicians understand what is their rights.

In this case, Cholil called royalties the right of creators of music one of the essential things that musicians need to know.

"Because digital music has become daily consumption, knowledge of royalties is becoming more important," said Cholil.

From his experience as an independent musician, Cholil gave an example of how the music industry at that time was much different from the current situation.

"I have an independent musician background who, if we have physical releases, we produce our own products, and we sell them directly when we perform," said Cholil.

"There we feel that what is happening in the industry is not very understanding and we don't know," he continued.

The 48-year-old musician sees that independent musicians are now more accepted, both by connoisseurs and industry.

The existence of digital technology has also made independent musicians part of the music industry itself.

In my opinion, when there is digital music technology that uses an established system outside, they have rules that are already running, they submit to their own system. Now, this platform has entered Indonesia, and we are unconsciously uploading it to YouTube and others, like it or not, it has entered the industry," said Cholil.

"This is different from the paradigm first, the mechanical one is still analogous. Finally, our paradigm is different now, because we are already part of the industry," he said.