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 New music licencing measures for DJs and venues could have an impact on the gay club scene. Adam Bub reports.
“I buy remixes from DJs all around the world. Isn’t it our job as DJs to actually teach the crowd about music that’s out there?” says popular Sydney DJ Sandi Hotrod.
Hotrod is one of many DJs who have mixed feelings about a new DJ licence being offered by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).
Available since March, the optional ‘blanket’ licence has been introduced to help DJs gain quicker permission from all major and independent record companies covered by ARIA to copy (or ‘format-shift’) their legally purchased music to CDs to play at gigs. Beforehand, DJs were expected to approach individual record companies to get clearance to copy the music, and still may do so.
At least 50 of Sydney’s most popular DJs, many of them regulars in the gay scene, attended an information session last Tuesday, May 13, at Slide nightclub. Organised by scene stalwart, DJ Justin Scott, its aim was to discuss the impact of the licence on the scene.
Sabiene Hiendl, General Manager of Music Industry Privacy Investigations (MIPI), an industry body that tackles music piracy, described the new licence as a ‘one-stop shop’ for DJs.
And what’s the cost for this protection? DJs must pay $800 per year, and provide an accurate record of tracks and volume of usage to ARIA, so that ARIA can distribute the money to the original record company and artist.
Some see the licence as a slap in the face to hard-working DJs. “We’re all willing to pay it,” Hotrod says. “I just feel like we’re getting nothing in return.”
Hotrod and other DJs are concerned that even though they do the right thing, some tracks, like international remixes, may not be represented by ARIA, making it possible for the state and federal police to catch even the most legally-conscious DJs out.
The police can issue on-the-spot fines of up to $1320 to DJs suspected of piracy, and penalties reach up to $60,000 and five years imprisonment. There are concerns that police have no way of telling if a DJ they’re accusing of piracy is telling the truth, except for MIPI's phone hotline for other DJs to report pirates.
According to Hiendl, the licence’s primary aim was to help the police catch ‘wannabe DJs’.
“You are not the people we’re going after,” Hiendl told the session. “I’m more concerned about people that are going onto [music piracy website] Limewire and downloading tens of thousands of songs and never paying a cent for that music.”
Clubs can’t afford to be liable for pirate DJs either, as they too were hit by a larger fee to legally play music. Last year, the Phonographic Performance Company Association (PPCA) raised the annual fee it charges clubs based on full capacity from seven-cents per person to $1.07 per person.
As CD sales dwindle, and illegal downloads continue, many believe that the music industry is at a crisis point. It’s common knowledge that any average Joe who illegally downloads music is infringing copyright laws.
While ‘format-shifting’ legally purchased CDs, vinyl records and digital files onto MP3 players, hard drives and CDs is permitted, an extra shadow hangs above the heads of DJs, who have a public responsibility to be 100% legal in their work. Most already pay for an Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners’ Society (AMCOS) licence to cover the reproduction of recorded music.
So will this affect the quality of music on the scene?
Jimmy Dee, Marketing and Promotions Manager for ARQ nightclub, lays it out on the table: “Nothing’s gonna stop me making 200 queens on a dancefloor happy.”
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