Tokyo, November 6, 2017
The Asia-Pacific Music Creators Alliance (APMA), following its successful Seoul meeting in May this year, has assembled music creators from around the region in Tokyo, to reinforce the campaign for better protection of authors’ rights to maintain respect for the creation of music, our culture, and the value of our creations.
In addition to the 3 issues identified in the Seoul Declaration, namely the resolution of the issue of buy-outs, the necessity of copyright term extension to life plus 70 years for music creators, and the prevention of the abuse of safe-harbor rules, the following issues also must be addressed.
Music lovers have enjoyed the freedom of privately reproducing music.As this has been recognized as a usage for which music creators ought to be remunerated, private copying remuneration systems have been developed and implemented in Europe and many other parts of the world.The Rapid introduction of remuneration systems into the countries of the Asia-Pacific is of paramount importance.
Music is an integral part of a movie. While films constitute a major part of the vast entertainment industry, film music creators are not remunerated fairly in the Asia-Pacific countries for the public showing of films that include their music.Film music creators should be remunerated at a level where they too can enjoy the success of a movie.
From the Seoul Declaration to the Tokyo Declaration. We will unite to comprehensively resolve each of these issues, and lobby governments, policy makers and politicians with the understanding and support of society on our side, so that the music culture we take pride in will continue to flourish and continue to create beautiful music.