The CISAC and its President Robin Gibb last week issued a statement statement berating two recent Court decisions in India regarding copyright laws, believing that these will result in injustices for artists and composers. Whilst this is admirable, I’m not sure what impact they expect these statements to make?

Are they hoping that their authority will carry some weight with the Indian Government? Certainly if you have genuine authority it can make a big difference to your bargaining power in any negotiation. However, the negotiating authority must be genuine otherwise it will have no impact on the other side. Most commercial music in India is of Indian origin.

I suspect that CISAC and the Bee Gees don’t have a huge amount of influence there. Maybe it would be better to find local Indian writers and superstars to complain about these decisions. They are more likely to have genuine “authority” with the Indian Government and consequently more bargaining power in any negotiation to have the decisions over-turned.