COSCAP collecting debts owed

Fri, May 25, 2012 - 11:59 PM

More than $70 000 in outstanding debt has been recovered by the Copyright Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Inc. (COSCAP) as a result of legal action against delinquent music users in 2011.

Chief executive officer of COSCAP, Erica Smith, said it was a challenge collecting the money but the organization was finding ways of “working with” the debtors.

She was speaking during a Press conference last Friday at COSCAP’s Belleville, St Michael office.

“Our challenges continue to be one of compliance,” she said. “The levels of compliance are still quite low. We have seen some improvements but these are threatened by the economic climate because as things get tough people are more reluctant to pay for licences.

“We try to reach out to music users. We have been doing campaigns where we offer discounted rates. Unfortunately, we continue to take legal actions. The compliance issue is also manifested in another way; it takes us a really long time to issue a licence . . . it is usually a really drawn out process [and] it is expensive.

“In terms of the legal actions we have taken, in 2011, we were able to recover about $70 000 in debts. What we find, though, is that [in] most cases, about 99 of the users will settle the matter.”

At the end of 2011, COSCAP had 639 writer members, about 34 publisher members, 632 performers and 123 producer members.

Smith said the low number of publishers may be due to “little understanding of the business of publishing”.

She disclosed the association recently signed an agreement with SLAM 101.1 FM and was negotiating with the newly launched Christ Is The Answer (CITA) gospel radio station.

COSCAP is a non-profit, copyright membership organisation representing the performing and reproduction rights in music of composers, authors and publishers, and the related rights of performers and producers of phonograms and videograms. (MM)