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October 28, 2009
JASRAC
Japanese Society for Rights of Authors,
Composers and Publishers (JASRAC)
Egregious Errors in Japan Fair Trade Commission's Findings
During the third hearing held today, JASRAC claimed and submitted evidence proving that there were egregious errors made in the certification of facts which led to the cease and desist order.
The cease and desist order in question was issued based on the finding that broadcasters avoided using musical works administered by a new copyright management organization in order to avoid paying additional copyright royalties.
However, JASRAC has learned that musical works administered by the new copyright management organization had indeed been repeatedly broadcast after October 1, 2006 when the new copyright management organization commenced licensing activities for broadcast usages. JASRAC pointed this out during the hearing and submitted corroborating evidence.
Works identified in the cease and desist order were broadcast after October 1, 2006.
The cease and desist order identifies the work "RENAI SHASHIN" performed by Ai Otsuka as an example of a work broadcasters avoided using. However, JASRAC has found that "RENAI SHASHIN" has been broadcast at least 515 times during October 2006, and at least 729 times from October to December that year. The finding was based on electronic usage report data JASRAC is currently able to confirm (attachment 1)
"RENAI SHASHIN" was released on CD on October 25, 2006, which is the fourth week of October 2006. JASRAC selected three other works (all administered by JASRAC) that occupied top spots on the Oricon hit-chart during that same week. JASRAC then compared the usage frequency of "RENAI SHASHIN" with the usage frequency of the other three works, as reported electronically by the broadcasters. Placing the graphs on top of each other, we can discern that the broadcast usage frequencies of all four works form roughly the same shape over eight weeks, from the first week of October to the fourth week of November, with a peak near the release date (attachment 2).
This indicates that there is no significant difference in tendencies between the usage report shown in attachment 1 for "RENAI SHASHIN" and those for the other works.
According to these statistics, it is clear that broadcasters did not in fact refrain from broadcasting works administered by copyright management organizations other than JASRAC for the purpose of avoiding additional copyright fee payments.
In surveying usage report data submitted to JASRAC, we have also confirmed that works that were assigned to other copyright management organizations during the quarter of October to December 2006 were broadcast many times.
*"SHIISAIDO BAIBAI," "SAYONARA," "YUMENO UTA" (see attachment 2)
Notes:
| 1 |
Creating Attachment 1
Attachment 1 was derived from electronic usage report data submitted to JASRAC by the broadcasters.
Although "RENAI SHASHIN" was not part of JASRAC's repertoire in the period up to December 31, 2006, because the usage reports submitted by the broadcasters do not differentiate between JASRAC repertoire, non-JASRAC repertoire (self-administered or administered by a separate copyright administration organization) and public domain works, the electronic usage report data submitted at that time could be used to confirm usage frequency.
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| 2 |
Usage reporting utilizing electronic data as of October 2006
As of October 2006, the number of broadcasters providing usage reports in electronic data form, fully or partially, was 143. This is merely 30% of the 470 broadcasters operating in Japan. Therefore, the usage frequency ascertained by this examination is likely to be less than the actual frequency of usage.
Also, because 39 FM radio stations were submitting full census usage reports in electronic data form at the time, roughly 95% of the accumulated data originated from FM radio stations. |
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