Sir, - We write to you in connection with the excellent feature "Music of the Peoples" by Mic Moroney (The Irish Times, October 28th) about the traditional music fiddler Tommy Peoples, who won the first IMRO Traditional Music Prize organised by TnaG and presented to him in Galway on October 26th.
In the course of the article it was stated that Tommy had joined IMRO two years ago and immediately after this it was stated that he has never received royalties from records which continue to sell.
In the event of your readers concluding that IMRO was in some way at fault in this regard, I would like to clarify that it is only from September 1998 that IMRO is offering to its members the service of collecting royalties on sales of records. (Prior to this, we collected royalties for public performance rights only.) We are offering this service in response to demands from our members. Prior to September, the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society was the only organisation administering these so called "mechanical rights" in Ireland. - Yours, etc., E. T. Shackleton,
Director of Services,
IMRO,
Lower Baggot Street,
Dublin 2.