Irish Music Rights Organisation
Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) is the collecting society for songwriters, composers and music publishers of Ireland. Its role is to act as an agent for its members in order to collect license fees whenever their musical works are performed in public, broadcast or transmitted, and to pay out performing royalties.
MRO was set up in 1987 by some of the most notorious elements in Irish music. Its rulebook explicitly states that royalties are to go to the directors and their families ahead of the musicians. Moreover, musicians on joining unknowingly give ownership of all their material to IMRO.
IMRO has been responsible perhaps more than any other single factor for the decline of Irish music since it (IMRO) got its monopoly to collect from venues in the mid-1990s. It has been supported mainly by criminal elements within the Irish government. For example, a massive investigation by the police was thwarted and the decision of the state not to prosecute was reported by the media before the police were told
The forthcoming crackdown on corporate enforcement in Ireland may put IMRO in further trouble. In particular, their practise of changing song titles, particularly in Gaelic, to make up a new tune code suggested fraud to the Irish bureau of criminal investigation, before their investigationwas aborted.
See “The Irish Music scam” on seanonuallain.com