This article was published in the annual magazine Irish Folk Festival (Petr Pandula, ed.) in September 2003.

The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) administers licences for performing rights in Ireland, and is the equivalent of GEMA in Germany. In their own words, "The Irish Music Rights Organisation is the national body charged with administering public performance rights in copyright music in Ireland on behalf of songwriters, composers, arrangers of public-domain works, and music publishers. IMRO's function is to collect and distribute royalties arising from the public performance of copyright works."

A series of controversies during the second half of the 1990s saw an eruption of suspicion, if not paranoia, about IMRO's operations. However, by the year 2000, what had been one of the most notorious organisations in the country had become one of the most accepted, in a complete and almost miraculous turnaround. Now the organisation operates with full government sanction, full support of the legal system, and with an unchallenged economic monopoly position in the Irish jurisdiction.

Performing rights provide one of the main financial supports for the international music industry. When you clear away all the legal jargon, and it's difficult enough to clear away, the primary function of performing or performance rights, developed from copyright theory, is that they act as a justification for prescriptive control, making it legitimate for one person to prescribe the actions of another unless a fee is paid. In other words: "Obey me! Pay me money! (or else!)". This is the most basic of logic behind IMRO's licensing of "uses" of "music" in public spaces. For IMRO to operate successfully, or even to operate at all, licences for "music use" must be enforced on the basis of either persuasion or litigation, and the claims to authority that the organisation makes must remain unchallenged. Licensing constitutes the primary activity of the Irish Music Rights Organisation and is how the organisation earns money. In 2000 IMRO's licensing revenue came to IR£19,457,780. If someone refuses to pay an IMRO licence when approached, then the organisation takes recourse to the Irish Circuit Court. If a licensing agreement has been contracted but royalties are not paid, then the "music user" is sued by the Irish Music Rights Organisation as a commercial debtor. Needless to say, performing rights licensing is invariably contentious.

A key performing rights dispute in the 1990s was that between IMRO and the Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI), an association of Irish publicans operating outside the Dublin area. Publicans objected to the amounts they were being asked to pay for performing rights licences and registered this objection in a campaign of non-cooperation with the Irish Music Rights Organisation. IMRO had made numerous attempts to achieve an agreement with the Vintners' Federation. Finally, the Vintners' Federation of Ireland's fourteen year dispute ended anti-climactically in late December, 1997 when an agreement was signed between the warring parties. By 1998 it seemed that IMRO had secured a position of unchallenged authority.

What complicated the Vintners' Federation dispute tremendously by 1996, however, was the co-optation of "traditional music" as a major issue in negotiations. As the VFI continued to complain about royalty payments rates, they turned to the issue of performance royalties for "traditional music sessions" to further justify their position. Hugh Duffy, then Chief Executive Officer of IMRO, claimed that the VFI were using the traditional music issue to lobby support for their reluctance to pay royalties. This was very likely the case.

Publicans assumed that the "use" of "traditional music" or the hosting of "traditional sessions" were somehow different from other "uses" of music. Two claims were made. The first was that they shouldn't have to pay performance royalties for "sessions" at all. The second was that such musical events shouldn't be charged as much as others. It was interesting that an issue was made of "traditional music" at all, or that the representatives of the Irish Music Rights Organisation were drawn into a discussion concerning it. If one were to follow the logic dictated by copyright there should have been no distinction drawn between one type of music and another on the basis of what the music sounds like. Within the logic of copyright a "work" has either been copyrighted or it has not, is either in copyright or is not, regardless of musical genre. Concessions, though, were granted to publicans. What became clear during the course of these negotiations, however, was that for the people who played in the "sessions" concerned, the issues extended beyond the merely economic.

It's really only in the last ten years that the issue of copyright has become familiar to people in "traditional" social circles. Before then it was of interest mainly to collectors and archivists, and to the commercially-viable performers who always seemed to learn more about copyright in the aftermath of a shady deal than they ever knew going into one. The growing popularity of what was labelled 'Irish traditional' or 'Celtic' music in music industry markets during the eighties and nineties created a climate in which performing rights organisations were called upon to meet the rising expectations of financial rewards from royalties. In turn, the growing recognition of financial reward for new composition led to an increase in both the number of tunes being composed and registered, and in the number of arrangements being claimed as original and copyrighted. Until the mid-nineties, however, knowledge or awareness of copyright in traditional music remained the preserve of few.

The tariff negotiations between the Vintners' Federation of Ireland and IMRO made a difference. It still remained something of an esoteric issue, but copyright had begun to impinge on the lives of people who hadn't given it much thought before. Awareness of the IMRO-VFI dispute among traditional musicians started to influence the choice of tunes in sessions at least by 1996. Working from understandings that were nothing if not confused, some musicians would refuse to play certain tunes at "traditional sessions" because the tunes were considered "copyright". Other musicians refused to play their own tunes until such time as they had been released on a commercial recording, for fear they would lose their copyright. Whether these concerns were based on correct interpretations of the law or on complete misunderstandings was of little matter.

The initial reaction of many to the inclusion of sessions in licensing was simple incredulity. They couldn't see how ideas of copyright, intellectual property or property of any sort could be applied to "traditional" contexts, and specifically the session. As fiddler Martin Hayes commented, "I mean, like, nobody owns the stuff. You can't own this stuff". As another musician put it rather bluntly: "You're not entitled to a copyright if it's being played in the session, because that's alien to the whole culture to do something like that".

The main concern seemed to be clear. IMRO was approaching publicans regarding licensing for performance royalties due to their members. Where "traditional" music was concerned, "arrangements" of tunes whose copyright had expired, played by IMRO members, were deemed to accrue royalties. Three things seemed to justify IMRO's jurisdiction in this matter: these "arrangements"; the presence of newly-composed, copyrighted tunes at 'sessions'; and the authority of legislation and international agreements. Many musicians expressed concern that IMRO's claims were inappropriate, and an intrusion, if not actually indirectly threatening sessions in pubs. Rumours abounded that sessions were being shut down on account of pressure placed on publicans by representatives of IMRO. All in all, though, the perceived threat to sessions was greatly exaggerated and largely erroneous.

Although there was undoubtedly demonisation of the role and activities of the Irish Music Rights Organisation, and a considerable amount of panic, rumour-mongering, and misinformation as to the damage that might be inflicted on "the tradition", there were a number of more measured concerns. Among these were accusations that representatives of IMRO were applying the letter of the law to "traditional music", without really knowing what they were talking about. To argue this, or to say that IMRO had no jurisdiction in these contexts was hardly likely to faze an organisation that claimed absolute jurisdiction in all places outside of the family circle where there might be the possibility of even one copyrighted work being played. Furthermore, to argue that certain contexts were non-commercial was hardly likely to succeed in the face of an organisation whose representatives claimed that all contexts were commercial, and that the primary motivation of human life was economic.

Interestingly, no organised traditional lobby group arose from the general resistance to the Irish Music Rights Organisation. However, the major Irish traditional music organisation already in existence, Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (CCÉ), provided somewhat structured opposition. At the time that "traditional music" became a focus of the VFI-IMRO dispute, the official position of CCÉ as an organisation was clear. In 1996, the members of Comhaltas overwhelmingly passed a motion at their national congress pledging non-involvement with the Irish Music Rights Organisation under any conditions.

The opinions of the full-time Ard-Stiúrthóir or Director-General of the organisation, Labhrás Ó Murchú, were fairly representative of concerns that were being generally expressed around the country. IMRO had, he felt, no expertise or appropriate understanding of what might be considered "traditional music". Furthermore, as far as their mandate was concerned, Ó Murchú claimed that the number of people in traditional music for whom copyright was an issue, whether they were commercially active or not, was negligible. He gave the clear impression that the vast majority of musicians involved in the non-commercial world would never even consider the issue of copyright, seeing traditional music as a free music, in the sense that everybody could play it, without restriction, without consideration of ownership. Furthermore, the copyright ethic of claiming ownership on tunes and songs that IMRO was promoting was anathema to the spirit of generosity which had sustained the types of "traditional" musical activity which Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann represented.

Following a series of private meetings, Shay Hennessy, then Chairman of the Irish Music Rights Organisation, and Labhrás Ó Murchú of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, signed a 'Letter of Agreement' on the 21st December 1998. In this "wide-ranging agreement" CCÉ and IMRO agreed to cooperate in the promotion of traditional Irish music, song, and dance, to the mutual benefit of members of both organisations.

For a nominal fee of £1000, Comhaltas contracted with the Irish Music Rights Organisation for a blanket licence to cover all official Comhaltas functions and centres. In return, IMRO agreed to make annual "financial subventions" to Comhaltas to a total of £250,000. As part of the agreement, IMRO also agreed to refer all requests for support for Traditional music to CCÉ. An additional sum of money, a "financial subvention" of £125,000, was also included, going to Brú Ború, a cultural centre affiliated to CCÉ and run by Labhrás Ó Murchú's wife.

The transformation of the official position of Comhaltas from complete opposition to complete alliance was nothing short of spectacular. Ultimately, all resistance to IMRO's activities among traditional musicians and others was rendered ineffective by the Comhaltas' agreement which legitimated IMRO's claims to jurisdiction in the "traditional" domain. But how can we begin to make sense of what happened?

On the one hand, we can take the legal route. We can do what Comhaltas did, and accept the claims to jurisdiction made by the Irish Music Rights Organisation with regard to session culture. We can acknowledge and respect IMRO's government-sanctioned monopoly. We can learn the law, abide by the law, claim ownership, recognise ownership, consult a lawyer when necessary, and obey - obey IMRO, obey the law, obey the courts, obey the government, obey the State. We can go around becoming increasingly aware of copyright and performing rights, and increasingly aware of the economic potential of the sounds we make and enjoy. This option poses no challenge to the largely unquestioned status of intellectual property, copyright, or performing rights and the impact of these on traditional musicians lives.

On the other hand, we can pose at least two lines of questioning with regard to these issues. A first might be to question the validity of performing rights at all. Performing rights are not specifically mentioned in the Irish Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000. Copyright is mentioned, and performing rights sort of have something to do with copyright, and something to do with "making a work available to the public", but nowhere is this made clear, in legislation or in the relevant literature. It seems to be simply assumed by all involved that there is a fundamental logic to performing rights and that it makes sense. There may not be any solid basis in logic for the operations of performing rights agencies at all. Yet, the rhetoric of copyright and performing rights continues to guarantee most financial turnover in the music industry worldwide, and the end, as ever, justifies the means.

One thing that is hardly ever noticed is that the supporting rhetoric for performing rights royalty enforcement runs a little thin. For example, the terms "music", "music use", "musical work", or "performance" are never defined, either in Irish legislation or in literature provided by the Irish Music Rights Organisation (except maybe in circular terms, where "music use" is what "music users" engage in, and vice versa). The licences themselves are for the "use" of a product, but the product itself is never specifically identified, residing somewhere among the terms "work", "music", and "performance". Nobody ever asks for more specificity than this, because it is always assumed that someone somewhere must have verified that the whole performing rights deal is above board and verifiable. It is simply assumed that these terms provide a safety net of solid justification for the organisation's activities.

A second line of questioning might be to interrogate the conflicts that arose with regard to traditional music in Ireland in terms of conflicting values, and ask how it was that a musician could declare the operations of performing rights "alien to the whole culture". Intellectual property constitutes a rigid set of traditions rooted in possessive individualism ("It's mine. It's not yours."). The logic driving operations such as IMRO is based upon assumptions that human nature is essentially self-interested, that the world is little more than economic checks and balances, that intellectual property is a universal truth, and that it's okay to force people to accept your ways of thinking instead of their own. Intellectual Property, copyright, and performing rights are doctrines, creeds. They imply the declaration "This is the way it is! Think this way (or else!)". As traditions they foster conflict, distrust, and certain paranoid anxiety about theft, ownership, and the all-seeing eye of Big Brother.

In contrast, there are other traditions which value the complexities, subtleties, and variables of personal experience, in complete contrast to the "universal truths" of the party line. Traditions in which relatedness and relationship are not only acknowledged but fostered and facilitated. Where respect, humility, gentleness, generosity, and compassion are important. Where absolute authorities or certitudes have no place among friends. These and other similar "traditions" constitute a powerful politics for being human, a powerful politics with which to counter unhelpful, propertizing, commodifying changes in our own particular experience.

It's not about some inevitable march of modernity against which we have no power or influence. It's all people. People doing what people do, and that includes us. It comes down to asking ourselves, "What do we want our kids to learn about life?" It is as real as that. Are we systematically forgetting, ignoring, or wilfully turning away from powerful and humanizing politics, and replacing them with the ready-made traditions such as those of intellectual property, copyright, and performing rights. And do we do this in deference to the law because we are often led to believe, by way of persusasion, coercion, and maybe a little self-interest, that we should?