IMRO to seek £1m in royalties

Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) is to vigorously pursue publicans and others for around £1 million which it claims it is owed on behalf of musicians and publishers.

IMRO will pursue payment following a decision by the Competition Authority to grant it a licence to collect royalties on behalf of music creators and publishers. The money is due when hotels, cinemas, pubs, shops and other outlets play their music.

IMRO, which has around 1,000 members who are songwriters and musicians, had been accused of having a monopoly by several bodies, including the Vinters Fedreration of Ireland and RGDATA, which represents shops and independently owned supermarkets.

The matter was referred to the authority which delivered its ruling yesterday.

The authority said it had decided that the arrangements by which IMRO licenses music users were not anti competitive as it was now open "to users to enter into agreements with individual copyright owners or to obtain such licences from overseas licensing arrangements".

According to IMRO, the authority also found the agreements between IMRO and music creators "represented an efficient, and, for many creators, the only way to obtain payments lawfully due for the use of their work."

IMRO said that the authority also said it recognised that "the conclusion of individual agreements between large numbers of creators and users would involve substantial transaction costs which would make such agreements highly impractical".

Mr Hugh Duffy, IMRO's chief executive, said that many pubs outside the Dublin area had not paid royalties due while the case had been referred to the authority.

IMRO would now be seeking payment, he said.

Mr Duffy said he was "delighted that IMRO had been vindicated".

IMRO collects around £5.5 million-£6 million a year in royalties on behalf of around 1,000 songwriters and publishers in Ireland and affiliated groups abroad.