Over the past month, 120 hotels and restaurants in Bali have received their first invoices for music licensing fees for using music. The fund collection was carried out by the LMK Selmi Collective Management Institute, a licensing center focused on three- to five-star establishments.
According to LMK Selmi's Secretary General Ramsudin Manullang, these are 'new users,' being billed for music licenses for the first time. 'Some have already paid. They are cooperating,' he noted. An audit is conducted before billing to confirm the use of music for commercial purposes.
According to Manullang, these 120 establishments represent about half of all hotels and restaurants in Bali subject to licensing. For those who have long been paying royalties, licenses are simply renewed.
However, the system for collecting and distributing royalties itself causes dissatisfaction among local musicians. The chairman of the Bali Association of Artists, Musicians, and Songwriters (Pramusti), I Gusti Ngurah Murtana, stated that the revenues from performing Balinese songs on the island hardly reach their authors.
'This is unfair. Balinese songs surely play in hotels, restaurants, cafes, and karaoke in Bali, but Balinese musicians and authors receive nothing,' he said.
Currently, collections from Bali are directed to the central LMKN body in Jakarta, from where they are then distributed among various regional LMKs across the country. Within each LMK, funds are divided among registered authors, without considering the frequency of specific song performances.
According to Murtana, such a system levels popular performers with those whose works are rarely played, depriving the former of a fair share of income. The Balinese music community has been striving for several years to create its own regional LMK, which would collect and distribute royalties for local music performances.
'We are practically ready. We have a database of songs and authors' names. The current system is non-transparent and non-digitized. I hope the Ministry of Justice will establish a special LMKN for Bali,' he concluded.
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