BSCAP: Musical Artists Who Perform Live Are Entitled To Payment

Earlier today, the work of artists and their talents received tangible support from the Belize Society of Composers, Artists and Producers, BSCAP.  The agency introduced a documentary entitled “Song Creation: A Musical Idea from Inception to Completion”.  It details the creative process from a first-person point of view and the importance of respecting and protecting the rights of artists and producers. BSCAP General Manager, Melissa Zuniga explained to News Five that the purpose of the documentary is to educate people that artists are entitled to royalties for the work that goes into creating a song. Zuniga and Producer, James Sanker, expressed hope that with the release of this documentary, people who use artists’ music, including radio stations, events promoters, restaurants, bars, and hotels, will begin to pay the artists when they perform on their shows and at their events because the work that goes into the preparation of those live performances is more than meets the eyes.

Melissa Zuniga

Melissa Zuniga, General Manager, BSCAP

“We ensure that creators are paid for their works that are publicly performed. So, when music is played at a concert, in a restaurant, or in a bar, we ensure that the license fees go back to the creators. If an artist is to approach every entity that uses their music, it becomes a time consuming process. And as you can see, we have creators already filling multiple roles, helps to make that process easier by collecting these fees and ensuring that the money goes back to the creators – all those persons who work on different components of the song. So the person that gets on stage and performs, the person that, you know, produces the music in the studio, the person that composes the lyrics or the melody. We ensure that all of those different persons are paid for the works that they do that are being used.”

James Sanker

James Sanker, Producer

“The basic steps in doing this is to find a team in your production official, then find an audience that you’re going to cater to. Before you select a particular song or anything, you basically need to know these are the audience that you want to engage. And then you go through a long process of song selection – what song this particular audience is going to like. Then you then select some artists that could actually play those songs. And that’s where the technical part comes in. The technical part comes in is that you have to make sure that every person that is playing an instrument, since we’re talking about live music, that they’re able to play and have the skill set in order to play those songs. So, then that is another process. Sometimes that goes through with trying people and they don’t work out and we have to make substitutions and stuff like that. So that’s another process that takes time. That take time and having the right people with the right chemistry for the right set of songs sometimes is daunting. Once you get the people in together that would do those that is going to be in the show, then it’s a whole creative process that starts.”