Right or wrong: ban to import of music CDs
RA@Kazuhiro Ando
The House of Representatives has approved a bill amending the Copyright Law to ban import of music CDs made lawfully in other countries.
This issue has been a problem for the recording companies over the years. The amendment will take effect from January 1, 2005.
I would like to say a few words on this since I myself am also in the music industry.
Importing cheap Japanese records made in Asian countries has bothered the recording industry for a long term.
You can easily imagine the large impact of cheap CDs of famous Japanese artists such as MISIA and Hikaru Utada to the recording companies when looking at the price difference between Japan and Asian countries like China and Korea.
Although many will agree on this aspect, the problem arises, that the amendment also prohibits import of Western music made in other countries because treatment to protect Japanese music and Western music cannot be differed legally based on national treatment principle.
Therefore, this amendment enables copyright holders in Western countries to stop export of their CDs to Japan.
Once the media announced this widely to the public, some of experts, musicians, and Western music fans began a big movement against this revision.
Japanese music fans have complained about the price of CDs in Japan because of the higher price than other countries.
The price competition with imported CDs made Western music titles cheaper than Japanese titles.
If the import of Western music stops, the price of CDs made in Japan will increase sharply. It is easy to imagine that this will be a hard break for fans.
Japan is the only country in the world to protect their domestic music industry by a resale price maintenance system. Currently,
the recording companies are trying to maintain resale price for six months by a time-limited price maintenance system. However,
most of the hit chart titles are new within one or two months after release.
For example, only 6 titles out of 100 in the single hit chart of September 20, 2004 passed more than six months after release.
So, it is reasonable to say that, in addition to resale price maintenance, prohibiting import of CDs made abroad will hinder price competition of records more and more.
The revised law includes a supplementary resolution saying that if any incident to violate consumer's benefit ever occurs, for example,
the obstruction of music CD import from Western countries, appropriate measures will be taken, including reviewing this amendment.
If the import of CDs made in Western countries stops, it will be inevitable to review the revised law.
Although it is difficult to tell whether copyright holders in Western countries will stop export or not,
they will do so ignoring the supplementary resolution of Japanese Copyright Law amendment if they think it is the best way for their businesses.
I can tell this for sure as far as my past experience working at one of five big labels. Let's see what will happen next to such a controversial amendment.
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