Vol. 559 No. 1
144 Mr. Gogarty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 124 of 22 October 2002, if she will initiate an investigation into the way in which IMRO feels qualified to grant a licence for the performance of traditional music handed down in the folk tradition to Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann and require that Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann pay it for the right to perform traditional Irish music. [25532/02]
As I pointed out in my previous reply referred to by the Deputy, the Irish Music Rights Organisation is a private, not-for-profit company, one of whose activities is to administer the public performing right of songwriters, composers and music arrangers in Ireland. The Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000, confers on such authors the exclusive right to carry out themselves, or to authorise or prohibit others to carry out certain acts in relation to their works, including their performance, showing and playing in public and their inclusion in broadcasts. Because of the impracticality from an author's viewpoint of administering public playing rights on an individual basis, such rights are normally administered through licensing bodies such as IMRO on behalf of their author-members, a situation recognised by the provisions of Part II, Chapter 16 of the Act. Collective management of this nature normally involves the collection of public playing royalties in accordance with licensing schemes, or tariffs, by a licensing body on behalf of its members.
I must emphasise again that where a body of music is handed down directly in the folk tradition – that is to say, where it has no identifiable writer, composer or arranger, and where it may reasonably be assumed that any individuals of this nature have been dead for 70 years or more, the law supports no exclusive right of the sort outlined above in favour of any party; nor, I understand, does IMRO claim any such right. However, where a new song or other music is written by a modern author in a traditional form or idiom, or where traditional music outside copyright is the subject of a new arrangement, the new author or arranger will be entitled to copyright protection for their new creations as they would for any other new composition or arrangement. As with other new compositions and arrangements, the composer or arranger in such cases has the option of administering their public playing right as members of a body such as IMRO, and it would in practice be usual for them to do so.
I am not in a position to comment in particular on the individual dealings between IMRO and other parties such as Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann. In general, however, I might comment that in instances where fully traditional music on the one hand and modern-arranged traditional music or modern music in the traditional idiom are performed in the same context, public performing rights administered by IMRO could be involved in respect of the latter arrangements and compositions.
