Indonesian music industry survives foreign invasion

Indonesian music industry survives foreign invasion

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): The party's over. It's time to get back to
reality. But, oh, such a dreadful one.

That is the general feeling shared by Indonesian musicians who
participated in the Pacific Harmony music convention in Bali last
month.

There's a feeling of fear concerning the possibility of the
local music industry blacklisting them, preventing them from
recording and selling their songs.

The reason, according to the composers, was because the
Pacific Harmony convention promoted the very issue hated and
avoided by music producers here: copyright.

To those whose livelihoods depend solely on composing songs
and have no side jobs, taking part in the convention put them at
risk of losing their livelihood.

"We risk death by taking part in the program. But we don't
care about that. The change in the current situation is, for us,
more important than the fear," a renown local composer, who
requested anonymity, said.

It seems there is a serious problem in the local music
industry despite the fact that it has achieved a proud
accomplishment. Of all the cultural industries, it is the only
one which can withstand the invasion of foreign pop cultures; a
number of songs have even won at various international
competitions.

The Indonesian public may prefer Hollywood films and TV series
to local ones, but they still listen to the local music.

According to data at the Indonesian Recording Industry
Association, between seven and eight million cassettes circulate
here every month, 80 percent of which is local music. No Western
music has outsold local music in terms of sales.

Michael Jackson's Dangerous is the best-selling foreign album
here, 475,000 copies, since its release in 1991. It is still far
below the local pop album Tak Ingin Sendiri by Dian Piesesha,
which has sold more than two million copies; or the Sundanese pop
album Kalangkang, which has sold approximately two million
copies. The sale of Dangerous is even lower than the average sale
of local top hits, which is above a half million copies each.

The sale of local music is estimated to reach 190 million
cassettes this year, turning over Rp 1.14 trillion to the
industry.

Unfair

The serious problem lies in the unfair distribution of
revenues.

Producers, and to a lesser extent singers, receive the lion's
share of the revenues, leaving many composers, the backbone of
the industry, in poverty, despair, or disillusionment, forcing
them to moonlight to survive.

"I became rich from the song Widuri (a hit in the 1970s).
Sadly, its composer, Adriadi, has continued to live modestly,"
veteran singer Bob Tutupoly revealed.

Bob said the prime reason is that many artists in the industry
have not yet applied the royalty system, while those who have,
are yet to do it properly.

Under the royalty system, as applied in such developed
countries as the U.S., composers are entitle to two rights.

First is the mechanical right, which is the right owned by
composers for the reproduction of their songs. The higher the
sale of the cassettes, CDs, Lasers or MiniDiscs, which contain
their songs, the bigger the royalty they receive.

The distribution of the royalty for mechanical right is done
on a pro rata system, that is to say, all composers share the
royalty equally. If one cassette, for example, contains 10 songs
by 10 different composers and only one song becomes popular, the
other nine composers will still receive the same amount of money
as the composer who writes the most popular song.

Composers of hit songs will receive an additional amount if
their songs are reproduced in a best selections album.

Composers usually sign up with publishing agencies who will
sell their songs to recording industries at the highest price
possible. They then monitor the sale of the album and collect the
royalty for the composers. The publisher receives a commission
for this service.

Second is the performing right, which is the right of
composers to revenues derived from the use of their songs for
commercial purposes. Pubs, discotheques, radio stations and
television stations should pay the performing right's royalty if
they use the songs for commercial purposes.

In developing countries, the collection of the performing
right's royalty is done by agencies other than the publishers.

In Indonesia, the collection of the performing right's royalty
is conducted by the Indonesian Creative Works Foundation. Founded
in 1990, the foundation has proved successful and effective.

As of last year, the foundation has tried to persuade local
composers to give it the right to collect the royalties for their
mechanical rights. So far, none are willing to, except the heirs
of deceased composers.

"They are afraid that none of the producers will be willing to
record their songs any longer," Candra Darusman, general manager
of the foundation, told The Jakarta Post.

'Bandit' songs

Instead of the royalty system, the Indonesian music industry
has long applied the so-called flat system. Producers pay, in
advance, a certain amount of money to composers, regardless of
the number of cassettes that will eventually sell.

This amounts to the purchase of the composer's mechanical
right by the producers.

Senior composer James F. Sundah said a new composer receives
about Rp 50,000 for a song that might have taken him months to
produce. A composer who has produced current hits may obtain
millions of rupiah for one new song. But, once his new songs
flop, his price will decrease instantly.

"When my song Nostalgia SMA hit the market (in the 1980s), I
was offered Rp 10 million per song. After that, my price got
lower and lower, until it is only about Rp 1 million now," Dadang
S. Manaf, who left his job at a bank for songwriting, said.

Some changes did occur after Indonesia issued the copyright
law in 1982 and amended it in 1987.

Since then, some composers have started to demand for the
application of the royalty system. However, in most cases they
have failed because producers automatically reject their songs.
Desperate for cash, the composers give in easily to the
producers.

The association, which groups about 90 percent of the 105
recording industries in Indonesia, said the situation has now
improved a great deal.

"About 50 percent (of the industries) have applied for the
royalty system," Arnel Affandi, general manager of the
association, told the Post.

Composers said the royalty system is not yet applied properly.
Only composers who are popular can deal with producers for
payment on a royalty basis, while newcomers and those whose
popularity are waning must be satisfied with the old system.

There is no pro rata system. The Indonesian recording industry
divides songs into two categories: jagoan (winning) and bandit
(bandit) songs.

The so-called jagoan song is one expected to be a hit, while
bandit songs are hopeless ones, functioning more as fillers. The
composer of a jagoan song gets big money and ample time in the
recording room, while composers of bandit songs get only small
payment and limited time in the recording room.

"If the recording takes 12 days, at least 10 days are
allocated for the composer of the winning song, to enable him to
work as good as possible, while the composers of nine remaining
bandit songs can only poorly record their works in the remaining
two days," James said.

Big-5

Arnel argued that producers are not the only ones to blame for
making the unsound practice prevail.

"Many composers prefer the flat system to the royalty system
because they can get their money quickly. They don't like waiting
for too long, until their songs are sold," he explained.

The question now being asked is, how long can the music
industry adhere to this system in order to survive? Not very
long.

The multinational music industries, BMG, Polygram, EMI, Warner
and Sony, the so-called Big-5, have long shown their interest in
the local market. But the government still prevents them from
opening their businesses here out of fear that they will kill the
local industries.

But, Arnel said, the government has made some gestures that it
will give them the go-ahead within two years.

Januar Ishak, a composer, as well as staffer of the Indonesian
Society of Composers and Arrangers, argues that the days of the
local music industry are numbered, unless they improve the
system.

"If they stick to the old system, most of the best composers
will thumb their nose at them and prefer signing up with the Big-
5, from which they can expect a fair system of royalty
distribution," he said.

The local music industry is now in fear of an invasion that
may threaten its livelihood.

Aware of the danger, the association, which claims to have no
legal power to oblige its members to follow a certain rule of
thumb, is going to make a wholesale campaign to promote copyright
awareness among the public, starting next month.

"Don't put all the tasks on to the association's members. All
people involved in the music industry, composers, artists,
arrangers, and the public, are responsible, to prevent our
beloved music industry from being crushed by the foreign ones,"
Arnel said.