RIM out to eradicate ‘truetone’ piracy disease

PETALING JAYA: The Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) is getting tough on "truetone" pirates.

Truetones utilise the actual recording of a song, thus involving a recording royalty, while polytone and monotones are reproductions of a recording, involving a publishing royalty.

In the case of truetones, where the master version (rather than a ringtone version of a song) is used, a master recording fee is required for recording companies, something which music pirates are blatantly disregarding, the recording industry said.

RIM chief executive officer Tan Ngiap Foo said it plans to nip truetone piracy in the bud before it becomes an "epidemic."

In conjunction with the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry, it has sent out more than 100 warning letters in the past week, and will be going on "as many raids as possible" in the future.

Tan said that there were four large operators that sell truetones through printed advertisements in various newspapers. He would not reveal names.

"We have sent out warning letters and they have since stopped advertising. If the other parties that we have sent warning letters to continue to operate, we will take legal action," he said.

"It is still piracy and is no different from physical piracy," he added.

Tan said that previously when raids were conducted, physical piracy peddlers ran while the illegal truetone pirates felt they had nothing to worry about.

"All this will change now," he said.

Tan estimated the percentage of pirated ringtones in Malaysia to be at about 90%. He could not give a breakdown for truetone piracy.

He claimed that the turnover for one company selling illegal ringtones amounted to RM4.7mil.

Again, he would not reveal names or how he got this information.

RIM claims that there are over 3,000 outlets selling illegal truetones in kiosks at malls, complexes and night markets.

"They include songs by local artistes like Siti Nurhaliza and Sharifah Aini. One dealer had 6,000 polytones and more than 100 truetones stored on his laptop; each truetone was going for RM5 per song,” he said.

Tan said that minimum fine for an infringing song is RM2,000 under the Copyright Act 1987.

Ringtone downloads in the Asia Pacific region are estimated to be worth US$200mil (RM760mil), according to Soundbuzz.com (www.soundbuzz.com) chief executive officer Sudhanshu Sarronwala.

Soundbuzz is a Singapore-based digital delivery services company.

There are no official figures for Malaysia.