Back in 2017, a number of music schools in Japan banded together to file a case against the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) for demanding that they pay royalties for songs music teachers demonstrated to their students. JASRAC manages a vast proportion of copyright and royalty payments for musicians in Japan. The litigation has not yet ended, and the Copyright Act in Japan was revised in 2019. However, the revisions may not be enough to allay fears that artistic education will be constricted by the organization expected to promote the arts.
The revised Copyright Act’s language in Article 30 opened up possibility of public use but the wording seems to apply to mere use of information (e.g. for AI’s machine learning!), and if “sensibility” or artistic impact is involved, the revision may not help the case of music schools. JASRAC has a history of winning in the courts against a variety of institutions using music in various settings.
The courts will need to decide on the extent of the loosening measures for the current JASRAC case, but lawyer Kidokoro Iwao suggests that Japan’s copyright policies up to now in law and the courts have restricted creative development and that after the emergence of the Internet, Japan’s lack of clear fair use doctrine hindered Japanese users in developing even simple site reproducing services like search engines effectively (e.g. they could be expected to acquire permission from every website owner before linking to content). The revisions to the Copyright Act may not be enough to leverage a win for the music schools, and foreign musicians still need to keep watch on how they develop works for Japan.
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Taro Yaguchi
Sources
Ministry for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. “著作権法の一部を改正する法律（平成30年法律第30号）について [Concerning the act revising part of the Copyright Act (Heisei year 30 act 30)]”
https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/chosakuken/hokaisei/h30_hokaisei/ Accessed February 18, 2020.
Okuda, Sou. “音楽教室に訴えられたJASRAC、その後改正された著作権法の影響は？ [JASRAC after being sued by music schools; what will the effect of the revised Copyright Act be?]” https://biz-journal.jp/2020/02/post_141260.html and https://biz-journal.jp/2020/02/post_141260_2.html February 13, 2020. Accessed February 18, 2020.
