Japan Violating Music Copyright Rules, U.S. Says

In yet another trade dispute with Japan--this time over music by recording stars ranging from the Four Tops to the Doors--the United States formally complained to the World Trade Organization on Friday about Tokyo’s failure to observe foreign music copyrights prior to 1971.

The period from 1946 to 1971, said U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, touting his Nashville heritage, was “one of the most vibrant and popular periods in the history of American music.”

That music--and the royalties due American recording artists--are being ripped off by Japanese companies to the tune of $500 million a year, Kantor and U.S. industry officials said.

The U.S. action opens a new front in its trade disputes with Japan, setting in motion a process under which the international trade body in Geneva could impose a binding settlement on Japan under a pact known as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

The complaint revolves around recently approved amendments to Japanese copyright laws that protect foreign sound recordings produced on or after Jan. 1, 1971.

“The entire body of American music produced from 1946, the date to which the world trade rules extend, to 1971 is vulnerable to piracy,” Kantor said.

Recording industry officials have estimated that the royalties lost when Japanese companies make compact discs of U.S. recordings from that 25-year period amount to half a billion dollars a year.

It was a powerful period of American pop-culture creativity.

To drive home his point, Kantor stood in front of a signboard listing some of the talent from the era: The Fleetwoods and the Temptations. Ray Charles and Tony Bennett. The Platters and the Coasters. Jefferson Airplane and the Everly Brothers, and Ike and Tina Turner. And the songs: “Tracks of My Tears,” “Teen Angel,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” “You’ve Lost That Loving Feelin’.”

Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for the Doors, the late-1960s Los Angeles rock group, said he and two other surviving members of the group that featured Jim Morrison are losing $300,000 to $500,000 a year in royalties from unauthorized Japanese CDs of their music.

“Don’t I deserve to receive what is my just deserts after these recordings have been made?” Manzarek asked.

*

At a tiny stall in a bustling Tokyo subway station Friday, “All You Need Is Love” blasted out of the speakers. And all you needed was 490 yen--$4.60--to buy a CD of that and other old Beatles tunes.

Officially licensed Beatles records sell for 3,000 yen--$28. But the ones sold in the subway are not pirated. They’re perfectly legal in Japan because they were cut before 1971.

Toshio Nagai, a manager at Shinchika, said the shop sells nearly $1,000 in CDs a day.

“We’re selling well only because they’re cheap,” Nagai said. “If they change the law, I’ll give it up.”

That is exactly what the United States wants.

It is the first time that the United States has presented a complaint to the Geneva-based WTO--successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade--covering intellectual property rights, which encompass such diverse pursuits as creating the formula for agricultural chemicals and book publishing.

Jay Berman, chairman of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, estimated that 6 million pirated CDs are made annually in Japan and that another 6 million are made outside Japan for Japanese companies.

*

But the issue, Kantor said at a news conference, extends beyond the piracy of recordings in Japan. It involves the precedent that would be set for other countries if the United States failed to crack down on Japan’s alleged violations and the potential for piracy of other creative pursuits, such as the writing of computer software and production of videos.

Fumio Yawata, a diplomat in the economic section of the Japanese Embassy, said after Kantor’s announcement that Japan looks forward to meetings with U.S. officials on the issue but that “we have different views concerning our copyright laws.”

Yawata said the trade agreement covering such copyrights allows members of the World Trade Organization “to determine their own level of retroactive protection,” and Japan is therefore within its rights to place recordings made before 1971 in the public domain.

Meanwhile, the standoff over the controversial U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement continued Friday. U.S. and Japanese officials wrapped up a two-day meeting in Newport Beach with no signs of weakening as the United States continued to push for renewal of the agreement in the face of strong Japanese opposition. The market access agreement expires at the end of July, setting the stage for another trade dispute this spring.