The Cabinet on Friday approved a revision bill of the copyright act, which will allow artists and record companies to receive royalties on songs that are played in commercial facilities as background music, in an effort to better support artists¡¯ success both domestically and internationally.

Under the current legal system, when a song is played in public location such as a store or a restaurant, the usage fee on the song is only paid to its composers and lyricists through a copyright collection group, such as the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, with no compensation given to a singer, musician or the record company behind the music.

The copyright policy committee at the Cultural Affairs Agency has pointed out the issues with such a system, including that up-and-coming artists ¡ª unlike copyright holders ¡ª have no means of receiving compensation even if they succeeded in having their music played in stores through their own hard work.

Japan is late in adopting the revision, with copyright laws that allow artists to receive compensation having been already implemented in 142 other countries. South Korea had adopted such a revision in 2009 while China did so in 2020.

Because Japan hasn¡¯t previously adopted an international legal framework, even if a Japanese singer is popular globally and their music is frequently played in stores abroad, they have been unable to receive copyright fees from the streaming.

Ways for them to monetize in a foreign country and receive a consistent income from the international market have remained limited to such revenue as performance fees when touring abroad.

Given the growing international popularity of Japanese artists, with the revision Japan looks to ensure that they are able to receive more compensation for the use of their work in foreign countries as well. In turn, it also looks to incentivize more artists to build popularity in the international market.

On the other hand, there are concerns that the extended compensation may be an additional burden for some commercial facilities that would have to pay more for the usage of music. The committee is considering the implementation of measures such as exemption or reduction of the fees for particularly small-scale businesses.

The Cultural Affairs Agency is looking to pass the revision in the current parliamentary session ending in July and aims to have the law take effect within the next three years, according to media reports.