Why Music Can Be Hazardous for Your Blog's Health

Jan 12, 2006
Music on your blog? You may need to license it
Website owners could pay from $1,000 to $10,000 a year based on number of songs
By Serene Luo

BLOGGERS and personal website owners may soon be pressed to license the background music that they have on their online journals or websites.

This was announced by Dr Edmund Lam, chief executive and director of the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (Compass), yesterday. He was launching Compass' one-stop centre which will make licensing musical works for digital distribution easier.

'We increasingly see more bloggers who upload music onto their webpages,' he said.

'We want to encourage them to come forward to our one-stop centre to get licensed, for a reasonable fee.'

For websites where the song cannot be downloaded or have any advertising, owners have to pay $1,000 a year for playing 10 songs or fewer, $5,000 for playing 11 to 49 songs and $10,000 for over 50 songs.

This is a 'competitive rate', said Mr Melvin Tan, the licensing manager of Compass, which protects the interests of composers and lyricists, and administers royalties to them.

Under the law, royalties must be paid on music put on websites too, even if it is a blog.

While it has not yet sued anyone, Compass will start 'massive educational efforts' soon, said Dr Lam.