Do Castro bar and The Venue pay royalties?

[abidismaili]

This question is just out of curiosity.  If they don't pay rest assured I won't inform authorities. 

Who knows about the business affairs of The Venue and Castro bar? They play music in their shows. They pay royalties for that?

Also The Venue before the show starts and in the breaks shows video from a Dutch concert from De Toppers. Do they pay for that and for the candid camera videos we see? 

 

[vinapu]

Do you pay your  taxes ?

And even if you say yes, how do we know if it's truth without consulting either you or Dutch tax authorities ?

[PeterRS]

All live and recorded music performed in any public space has to be covered by a licence from Music Copyright Thailand Ltd. There is a sliding scale of rates. Not sure of the capacities of The Venue and Castro Bar. If between 60 and 100 seats the fee is 20,000 baht per year. Above 300 seats the fee is 100,000 baht. Royalties are also payable in go-go bars and for places like music in hotel lifts. Whether the enforcement agency actually makes the bars pay, is another matter!!

[ceejay]

There is, I believe, a collection company in Thailand which collects royalties from public venues playing music copyrighted outside Thailand. They sell what are, in effect, public performance licences and distribute the revenues among their clients. The equivalent organisation in the UK is the Performing Rights Society.

One of the reasons you hear western music in these venues is that there is just one such company so licencing is simple. For Thai music there are more than 20 and it is easy not to have the right licences and too costly to have them all.

Castro and the Venue probably do have the right licences. The licence companies do inspect and do prosecute. If you were a barber's shop in Nakhon Nowhere you could probably get away with not having one, but an entertainment venue in a tourist district? I doubt it.

 

[abidismaili]

39 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

All live and recorded music performed in any public space has to be covered by a licence from Music Copyright Thailand Ltd. There is a sliding scale of rates. Not sure of the capacities of The Venue and Castro Bar. If between 60 and 100 seats the fee is 20,000 baht per year. Above 300 seats the fee is 100,000 baht. Royalties are also payable in go-go bars and for places like music in hotel lifts. Whether the enforcement agency actually makes the bars pay, is another matter!!

Thanks. You really are  good informed about Thai law.  Since it is a very low amount I guess they all pay.  No idea it was that cheap.

[Boy69]

20k to 100k Baht is not cheap at all for Thai businesses...