Only two political candidates have secured a public performance licenses, despite the rampant public playing of copyrighted music during election campaigns, the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Inc. reported Tuesday.
Rock musician and composer Raymund Marasigan issued a recent public call for politicians to ask permission from composers to use their songs in their campaign jingles.
“Generally, there are three copyright licenses that must be secured by political candidates who intend to use copyrighted music: one, a modification or adaptation license if the lyrics of a copyrighted song will be changed or modified to make a campaign jingle; two, a reproduction license if a copyrighted song will be recorded or copied (whether the lyrics are revised or not), and the third, a public performance license if a copyrighted song will be played to the public as campaign jingle, or as entertainment or background music during a campaign rally or event,” said FILSCAP’s general counsel Michael Hernandez.
FILSCAP is the collective management organization accredited by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines to license the public playing of copyrighted music.
According to FILSCAP, as of April 12, only senatorial hopeful Christopher “Bong” Go and mayoral candidate Jon Wilfredo “JT” Trinidad have secured the necessary license from FILSCAP to play copyrighted music in their campaign rallies.
The group primarily licenses the public playing of over 20 million copyrighted local and foreign musical works which accounts for about 95 percent of the copyrighted songs that are now being publicly played in the Philippines.
The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines reiterated the call to political candidates to respect intellectual property, and obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder.
FILSCAP lamented that while very many political candidates are now aware that they need to secure a license if they change the lyrics of a song to make campaign jingle, most of the political candidates are still not aware that a license must also be secured if copyrighted music will be played as background or entertainment music during a campaign event.
The IPOPHL, together with FILSCAP, has long been advocating for political candidates and parties to respect the intellectual property rights of copyright owners.
As provided under the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, a candidate engaged in the unlicensed or unauthorized public playing of copyrighted music could be held civilly and criminally liable for copyright infringement.
FILSCAP is continuing to monitor the use of copyrighted music by political candidates and has already reached out to political candidates and parties.”‹