The Recording Industry Association of Japan – RIAJ calls on Apple to crack down on unauthorised music apps as part of a request by four music industry associations and four music streaming providers for Apple to act more decisively. It suggests that this should be done through stricter pre-screening and faster takedowns and is aimed at ‘Unauthorized Music Apps’ which stream music in ways that flout copyright and other legitimate rights.
The organisations that have come together to make this request are:
Recording Industry Association of Japan
Japan Association of Music Enterprises
Music Publishers Association of Japan
the Federation of Music Producers Japan
AWA Co. Ltd.
KKBOX Japan LLC
LINE MUSIC Corporation
Rakuten Inc.
The RIAJ notes in a recent announcement that ‘the recent torrent of Unauthorized Music Apps flooding the industry is enabling users to listen to music for free, resulting in these app operators to gain unfair profits through advertising sales. These operators are not only committing copyright infringement, but also stealing profit from the music’s rightful copyright owners and legitimate service providers – profit that they would have otherwise gained through CD sales, downloads, and streaming. Because some apps even leak their users’ personal information, the issue is evolving into a social problem.’
Currently, Apple removes any apps reported through RIAJ from the App Store if they are confirmed to be Unauthorized Music Apps and while this has been the general solution for many years, their App Store frequently fails to follow through with takedown requests, and republishes deleted apps disguised as new apps.
The joint request urges Apple to reinforce their countermeasures against such apps with the following measures:
- Strengthen the review process before apps are registered and published, including contacting and working with RIAJ for apps suspected to be Unauthorized Music Apps
- Expedite takedowns upon the right owner’s request for apps that violate Apple’s Terms and Conditions
In common with many other countries’ music industry associations the Japanese music industry associations and music streaming service providers are calling for revisions to their country’s Copyright Act to fully reflect the reality of today’s digital world.
