I’M PRETTY sure a lot us have fallen into the so-called “Last Song Syndrome” or LSS trend upon hearing numerous campaign jingles playing all over our town nowadays. It’s hard to avoid hearing them in the first place, and we have to admit that we are somewhat entertained just by listening to them as well. Not to mention if the song that is playing loudly on the background is the election material of the candidate we are rooting for.
However, not all of us have thought that while these jingles and campaign materials are amusing to hear, these are actually violating the rights of the singers, composers, and producers of the original songs.
It only took a guy named Raymund Marasigan, Sandwich band frontman and former Eraserheads member, to make us realize this. On April 3, he turned to Twitter and posted a firm conviction saying that those who use songs and jingles without permission should not be voted for.
In his tweet, he cautioned people not to vote for those using “unauthorized bastardized version of a popular song as an election jingle.” He also ended the tweet with a strong claim, “‘Di pa na-elect, nagnakaw na.”
As early as 2016, this issue has already surfaced with the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Inc. or Filscap bringing the matter to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the unauthorized use of songs in campaign jingles is a violation of the Intellectual Property rights of the composers.
Filscap also requested Comelec to help monitor the campaign jingles. Similarly, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) called on candidates to respect copyrights in their campaigns during the last national elections. IPOPHL says “songs, both lyrics and melody, are protected by copyright, which generally belong to the composers...for this reason, the songwriter’s consent is needed before creating a jingle based on their works. So does the singing of a song, or dancing along to it, during the campaign program.”
Copyrightuser.org defines copyright as a protection to a song which is a combination of a melody, which is the musical work, and the lyrics, which is the literary work. According to copyrightuser.org, “one or the other could be used separately and still be protected. The song is protected by copyright once it has been ‘fixed’ in a form that can be copied, such as being written down or recorded. It has to be original in the sense of not having been copied from elsewhere. Copyright enables the authors to control the use of their work: who uses it and how.”
Furthermore, copyrightuser.org also lists down the violations of copyright which include copying the protected work (the reproduction right), distributing copies of it, whether free of charge or for sale (the distribution right), renting or lending copies of the work to the public (the rental right), performing, showing or playing the work in public (the public performance right), communicating the work to the public, including putting it on the internet (the communication right), and making an adaptation of the work (the adaptation right).
It is clear that the law protects the rights of the people who own the song as their own intellectual property, and that the use of such as a campaign jingle or for any other purpose, if unauthorized, constitutes copyright infringement. I think one way on how we can help monitor copyright violations during elections is for Comelec to add this to the Statement of Contributions & Expenditures report of each candidate at the end of the campaign period. The candidate should declare what election jingle he/she used and report in the said summary the amount paid for the song adaptation and other copyright expenses. Let’s just hope and pray that Comelec can do this for our hardworking artists, singers, and composers.