PETALING JAYA: The Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) has set up a one-stop centre to licence local music repertoire for digital distribution.

The move is to address the complex licensing issues associated with the digital distribution of music, it said. But for now the licensing is restricted to ringtones, as a test.

“We have created a one-stop payment centre within RIM, rather than having the content provider go about obtaining many different licences from the various licensing bodies,” said RIM chairman Sandy Monteiro.

Previously, a content provider – a telecommunications company, for example – that wanted to sell “truetones” (a ringtone that contains an actual recording of a song) had to obtain a total of five licences.

It had to obtain separate licences from the Phonographic Producers of Malaysia (PPM), Music Authors Copyright Protection (MACP) and PRISM (Performers and Artistes Rights Malaysia).

Two separate rights are required – reproduction rights are needed to make one or more copies of the musical compositions and/or sound recordings for sale. Every sale of a truetone is an act of reproduction of musical composition and sound recording.

Then there's broadcast rights. This refers to the act of transmitting ringtone signals via SMS (short message service) to a consumer’s handset.

Broadcast rights have to be obtained from three separate bodies – MACP on behalf of the songwriter, PRISM on behalf of the singer, and PPM on behalf of the recording companies.

On top of that, the telco also had to obtain two reproduction licences from the recording company and the publisher (or composer).

The licences for normal polyphonic tones and monophonic tones are more straightforward because reproductions of a recording only involve royalties payable to MACP and the publishers (or composers).

With the setting-up of RIM's one-stop shop, the process of licensing local music is now relatively simple. The content provider just needs to deal with the association.

“It is up to the foreign copyright owners if they want to follow suit and simplify the distribution of international music,” said RIM general manager Tan Ngiap Foo.

New media plan

This is one measure that RIM is taking to address new media issues. RIM is preparing its New Media Plan, which seeks to address complex issues such as this, according to Monteiro.

However, RIM is still hesitant about new media because it believes that it will take a while for a digital distribution market to take off in Malaysia.

“We want to be prepared for when that happens,” said Monteiro. “In the meantime, we're basically a think tank, looking at addressing issues and how to grow the new media market.”

“We don't want to just rush in and wave the flag for new media. We want to see where the money is, if a viable online music market is possible,” he said.

A legal online music market is almost non-existent in this country, with the exception of Singapore's “digital delivery” company Soundbuzz.com offering its services here, beginning last year. The company is offering 300,000 tracks (of local and international artistes) at S$1.99 (RM4.60) a track but response has not been encouraging, according to industry sources.

If an established operator like Soundbuzz is having trouble attracting Malaysian music lovers to its online service, it's no wonder that RIM remains hesitant.

“We aren't in a rush to initiate a legal online music service, we will only do so when the market is ready,” said Monteiro.

Soundbuzz chief executive officer Sudhanshu Sarronwalla says the number of Malaysians who have paid to download from its service is “still very small” but he believes this will change.

“We are waiting to tie-up with a media partner in Malaysia to drum up more interest in legal downloads.”

To compound things further, Apple Computer Inc has yet to deliver iTunes to this part of the world.

A regional Apple executive said last year that the launch of iTunes in Malaysia was more of a question of “when” rather than “if,” but refused to be tied down to a specific timeframe.

Most music industry players have cited the lack of broadband penetration as a reason for not offering legal online music services locally. Broadband penetration is now less than 2% of the population.