FILM MUSIC FEES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 9

FILM MUSIC FEES

CONFERENCE CALLED TO DISCUSS POSITION PROBLEM FOR EXHIBITORS (From Our Resident Reporter.) AVELLINGTON, July 12 When it was apparent that the talkies had come to stay exhibitors were of the opinion that the price they were being charged for sets and installations was too high. As soon as agreement was reached on that point it was found that the Western Electric Company had made an arrangement by which the new films-, which were made under the Western Electric system, would not be released in any theatres where the reproducing apparatus was inferior to the Western Electric Company’s own. The company, it is stated, was made the judge of the standard of the apparatus. This caused disagreement, but a settlement was arrived at only a week or so ago. Now exhibitors find that the Western Electric Company is purchasing, for cash, the rights of reproduction of music used on the films, and proposes to charge an extra fee for this. In existing circumstances, exhibitors pay a set fee to the International Copyrights Association to cover musical performances at theatres, this fee being calculated at a rate of so much for every 100 seats. The newest development means that an exhibitor may be placed in the extraordinary position of having taken a film and being unable to screen it because though he has the film he has not the right to the “talkie” part of it without payment of an extra fee. It is stated that New Zealand exhibitors consider the fees being asked much too high. A conference has been called in Wellington and the New Zealand Exhibitors Association representing over 90 per cent, of the motion picture exhibitors of the country, will meet here today. The association intends to approach the Government to ask for legislation on the same lines as the Copyrights Act of the last Parliament.