LIVING IN MUSIC<br> LIVING ON MUSIC
Growing up, Zarin Tasnim, a young music enthusiast was always surrounded by music. She started her guitar and violin lessons when she was very young. By the age of 20 she was already composing little musical pieces by herself. Becoming a professional musician, therefore, was a rite of passage for this young music buff. After finishing her university education, when it was time for her to map out the next chapter in her life, she preferred not to waste time on something she would not enjoy doing. The eagerness to have her music brought before an audience in its full glory enabled her to focus on a career as a musician. But as soon as her parents came to know of their daughter's intentions, serious doubts were cast upon the validity of her career selection.
“No one was happy with my decision, as they were not even willing to acknowledge that music could be my primary source of income,” says Tasnim disappointedly. “Not only that, my musician friends also started to tell me how frustrated and discouraged they were, as they were struggling to have the music career they had dreamed about their whole lives.”
Feeling discouraged, Tasnim decided to pursue a separate career path while continuing to work on her music. She now works eight hours a day, five days a week at something that gives her financial security, but not the happiness she derives from music. “So I try to keep myself busy doing music during my days off from my full time job. I manage to carve out some time off for my passion, which I know is not enough.”
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. There are countless pitfalls and detours on the path to success and that is particularly true in the country's music industry. With the advent of music piracy and illegal reproduction that verge on virtual reality, the value of a music album, and also a live musical performance have been drastically discounted. Also in most of the cases musicians are forced to accept the pain of receiving a paltry wage for their talents. There are other issues that are important to musicians besides social recognition, namely recording protection and fair payment. As a result, music as a sole career might not seem lucrative to young people, not to mention their parents.
Take the legendary singer Ayub Bachchu's journey. Embracing music as a career was not an easy feat for young Bachchu when he first came to Dhaka from Chittagong.
“Getting a music career off the ground requires a number of things- hard work, patience, originality and also money. Unfortunately the number one struggle that nearly everyone in the music industry faces is money, as they have a hard time earning royalty for their creative property,” comments Bachchu. “What is even more unfortunate is that our country does not value a singer or a musician like the way it does people from other conventional professions. So even after delivering great music, the payoffs were not always that great. Working on a single tune demands countless sleepless nights, but trust me the return might not be as rewarding as it should be. So if young people don't get enough incentives to take up this risk, why would they choose music as their career? Given the scenario they would prefer keeping music as a hobby, rather than a profession.”
The common grievance that most musicians have is the endless struggle to get their fair payment and royalty.
“The musician who fights for dignity and a handsome wage is often replaced by the ones who are ready to compromise their music for money,” says Bachchu.
“In my case I'm delighted that my journey took the turn that it did, obviously – the struggle has only been one facet of my musical life,” Bachchu continues. “On the other hand, I have earned love and appreciation of my fans which push me to achieve much more.”
“The short sighted approach of accepting any offer to perform on live TV shows, no matter what the conditions, has had the effect of devaluating live musical performance in the eyes of our music lovers,” says Elita Karim, one of the young accomplished singers of the country. “We need to do a couple of other jobs to fund our music whereas in the western world the musicians can spend their entire time in the betterment of their skills. If we could earn the royalty from every time our music is played or used in any media, definitely there would have been more enthusiastic people taking up music as their sole career.”
Accomplished Tagore artiste Aditi Mohsin is one of those singers who never stop trying to figure out a way to create a sustainable or even lucrative career in music. A believer in the mantra of choosing the career that makes her happy, Aditi has spent more than a decade to take music as her full-time profession. “Nowadays many young people show interest in making music as their career and this is quite different from the time we started,” believes Aditi. “At that time, those who embraced the profession were not viewed with respect and dignity. I believe now the situation has changed to some extent, and yet by not a large margin.”
“The answer to why most of us feel discouraged to take music as a full-time career is quite simple,” she continues. “The major incentive of making money is missing in this career. Most of our artistes are not guaranteed fair pay for their performances; they face a hard time in collecting their royalty and often retire in poverty.”
The financial constraint would not be there if the artistes could earn royalty from their albums or tracks used in any other media.
“In Bangladesh we have laws for copyright infringement which maintain an international standard, aligning with the Berne Convention. The very notion of copyright act-2000(amended in 2005) is that nobody is authorised to use or commercially sell copies of a protected work without authorisation from the author concerned with the work,” says Barrister A B M Hamidul Mishbah, the founder of Bangladesh Copyright & Industrial Property Forum (BCIPF) and member of the Anti-Piracy Task Force of Bangladesh. “According to the relevant sections of copyright law, an unauthorised use of a work, except for certain cases, is illegal and punishable”
Therefore, Barrister Mishbah believes that it is wrong to put the entire blame on the government; the musicians and singers are also equally responsible. According to him, many of them are not really aware of their rights and IP laws, and thus they are unable to stand for what is right. Secondly, in many cases they manifest inability of handling their musical works. For example, musicians tend to make contracts with different recording companies without foreseeing the long term damage they might face. By doing so, they are authorising those recording companies to make illegal use of their music. Thirdly, there is a dearth of specialised copyright lawyers who can be sought for legal advice and assistance.
The government is also introducing CMO (Collective Management Organisation) regulations, which is mostly known as copyright collecting societies. “A CMO is supposed to provide the monetary advantage to be obtained by the user from the exploitation of the copyrighted work, the value of the copyrighted work, its purpose, the proportion of the utilisation of the work, any other relevant decision of a court on the matter of copyright tariff,” Meshbah says. “This will surely be a helpful tool to solve dispute over copyright issues,” he ends optimistically.
However, it would be foolish to expect the situation to get better overnight. It is imperative, however, for musicians to be aware of the IP laws and not to prioritise short term gains over their artistic productions.
Artists are partially to blame for this growing issue, believes Armeen Musa, a young singer-musician. “When there was less information available there was an excuse but even now despite being aware of how "record labels" will take them for a ride, they return to work with these labels. Without a doubt, the established labels of the country have enough money and distribution power to carry out profitable marketing strategies. But in terms of revenue, they don't have proper book keeping and actually contribute to the piracy movement. Piracy websites like Bdmusic, Doridro, cannot exist without some cooperation from the legit music labels. Having said that, the government should also take active measures to prevent online piracy.”
Musicians need strength and unity to stand against the odds in the music industry, believes Bachchu. “We have a few platforms through which we can unify and gather strength. But unfortunately the number is less,” says Bachchu sadly. “A unified force dedicated to the betterment of the condition of people connected with music by any means is a dire need.”
Armeen too agrees that having a more open community of business and musicians would even out the gaps. But that's easier said than done.
The responsibility of making music a popular profession falls upon all of us. The noble art to which we turn for pleasure and nourishment needs the assistance of the government, which can ensure the best interests of the musicians. At the same time, only the artists themselves can influence the perception of what they are and what they do. They hold the ability to affect the working conditions which are steadily approaching a new wave of career opportunities. Most importantly, we, the audience also need to keep in mind that we can't take any work of art for granted. Since we can easily find music online now, many of us are less likely to purchase CDs from shops. But if you demand good music, and want to help musician earn from what they create, buy the albums instead of downloading songs illegally from the net. You can get autographed copies and keep them in your collection. A combined effort will help the music aficionados choose music as their full time profession, instead of a mere hobby.
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