FILIPINO
SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS, AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS, INC. V. TAN
G.R.
NO. L-36402
DATE
March 16, 1987
PONENTE
PARAS, J
FACTS:
Plaintiff-appellant is a non-profit
association of authors, composers and publishers duly organized under the
Corporation Law of the Philippines and registered with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Said association is the owner of certain musical
compositions among which are the songs entitled: "Dahil Sa
Iyo,""Sapagkat Ikaw Ay Akin,""Sapagkat Kami Ay Tao
Lamang" and "The Nearness Of You."
On the other hand, defendant-appellee
is the operator of a restaurant known as "Alex Soda Foundation and
Restaurant" where a combo with professional singers, hired to play and
sing musical compositions to entertain and amuse customers therein, were
playing and singing the above-mentioned compositions without any license or
permission from the appellant to play or sing the same.
Accordingly, appellant demanded from
the appellee payment of the necessary license fee for the playing and singing
of aforesaid compositions but the demand was ignored. Hence,
appellant filed a complaint with the lower court for infringement of copyright
against defendant-appellee for allowing the playing in defendant-appellee's
restaurant of said songs copyrighted in the name of the former.
Defendant-appellee, in his answer,
countered that the complaint states no cause of action. While not denying the
playing of said copyrighted compositions in his establishment, appellee
maintains that the mere singing and playing of songs and popular tunes even if
they are copyrighted do not constitute an infringement under the provisions of
Section 3 of the Copyright Law (Act 3134 of the Philippine Legislature).
ISSUE/S:
whether
or not the playing and signing of musical compositions which have been
copyrighted under the provisions of the Copyright Law (Act 3134) inside the
establishment of the defendant-appellee constitute a public performance for
profit within the meaning and contemplation of the Copyright Law of the Philippines
RULING: It is public performance but there is no infringement.
We concede that indeed there were
"public performances for profit."
The word 'perform' as used in the Act
has been applied to "One who plays a musical composition on a piano,
thereby producing in the air sound waves which are heard as music . . . and if
the instrument he plays on is a piano plus a broadcasting apparatus, so that
waves are thrown out, not only upon the air, but upon the other, then also he
is performing the musical composition."
In the case at bar, it is admitted
that the patrons of the restaurant in question pay only for the food and drinks
and apparently not for listening to the music. As found by the trial court, the
music provided is for the purpose of entertaining and amusing the customers in
order to make the establishment more attractive and desirable (Record on
Appeal, p. 21). It will be noted that for the playing and singing the musical
compositions involved, the combo was paid as independent contractors by the appellant
(Record on Appeal, p. 24). It is therefore obvious that the expenses entailed
thereby are added to the overhead of the restaurant which are either eventually
charged in the price of the food and drinks or to the overall total of
additional income produced by the bigger volume of business which the
entertainment was programmed to attract. Consequently, it is beyond question
that the playing and singing of the combo in defendant-appellee's restaurant
constituted performance for profit contemplated by the Copyright Law. (Act 3134
as amended by P.D. No. 49, as amended).
Nevertheless, appellee cannot be said
to have infringed upon the Copyright Law. Appellee's allegation that the
composers of the contested musical compositions waived their right in favor of
the general public when they allowed their intellectual creations to become
property of the public domain before applying for the corresponding copyrights
for the same is correct.
The Supreme Court has ruled that
"Paragraph 33 of Patent Office Administrative Order No. 3 (as amended,
dated September 18, 1947) entitled 'Rules of Practice in the Philippines Patent
Office relating to the Registration of Copyright Claims' promulgated pursuant
to Republic Act 165, provides among other things that an intellectual creation
should be copyrighted thirty (30) days after its publication, if made in
Manila, or within sixty (60) days if made elsewhere, failure of which renders
such creation public property." (Santos v. McCullough Printing Company, 12
SCRA 324-325 [1964]. Indeed, if the general public has made use of the object
sought to be copyrighted for thirty (30) days prior to the copyright
application the law deems the object to have been donated to the public domain
and the same can no longer be copyrighted.
A careful study of the records reveals
that the song "Dahil Sa Iyo" which was registered on April 20, 1956
(Brief for Appellant, p. 10) became popular in radios, juke boxes, etc. long
before registration (TSN, May 28, 1968, pp. 3-5; 25) while the song "The Nearness
Of You" registered on January 14, 1955 (Brief for Appellant, p. 10) had
become popular twenty five (25) years prior to 1968, (the year of the hearing)
or from 1943 (TSN, May 28, 1968, p. 27) and the songs "Sapagkat Ikaw Ay
Akin" and "Sapagkat Kami Ay Tao Lamang" both registered on July
10, 1966, appear to have been known and sang by the witnesses as early as 1965
or three years before the hearing in 1968. The testimonies of the witnesses at
the hearing of this case on this subject were unrebutted by the appellant.
(Ibid., pp. 28; 29 and 30).
Under the circumstances, it is clear
that the musical compositions in question had long become public property, and
are therefore beyond the protection of the Copyright Law.
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