Imro goes to the pictures

Subject: Imro goes to the pictures
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 05:27 AM

Irishh Times Friday 26 February
"INDEPENDENT CINEMAS SAY VIABILITY AT RISK
Independent cinemas have warned that their viability is being threatened as a result of proposed changes in the system of paying royalties to the Irish Music Rights Organisation (Imro).
Imro is seeking to replace a tiered system of royalty payments with a 1 per cent levy on the gross box-office takings of every cinema in the country.
Currently cinemas in towns of fewer than 15,000 inhabitants pay a fee of €425 a screen per annum. Cinemas in bigger urban centres with four screens or fewer pay 0.6 per cent of gross box-office takings. Bigger multiplexes pay 1.5 per cent.
Imro is also proposing to backdate the payments for five years from when the measure was originally proposed.
Smaller cinema operators who attended a meeting hosted by Imro in Dublin yesterday said the proposal amounted in some cases to a five- to seven-fold increase on their existing royalties payments."

Jim Carroll