PESHAWAR: The artists and rights activists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have praised royalty bill presented recently in the Senate and termed it a big relief to the dilapidated entertainment industry.

They said that unfortunately there was no law or system to protect the copyright of a performer and works of many known artists had been rerun rather misused causing huge financial loss to the performers but the news of royalty bill sent wave of rejoicing among them.

They said that if the bill was made a law, it would prove a milestone for empowering of not only the suffering artists but also big relief to the declining entertainment industry.

Rashid Khan, chief of Hunari Tolana Welfare Society, told this scribe that royalty bill was the longstanding demand of the artists serving different disciplines of art and culture across the country.

He said that artists had been deprived of their genuine right of reaping fruit of their labour owing to no system of royalty or residual payment in the country.

He added that the bill would definitely change landscape of art and artists.

“In the past decades, we have seen that many artists suffered due to unavailability of adequate funds. The recent news of a resolution on artists’ rights in the Senate gave us a hope that copyright boards would be empowered to fix the royalties for licensing assignment of work and ensure payments to the artists whenever their work was used in any mode,” he said.

Mr Khan said that already many artists were underpaid and lived under financial constraints as cultural activities were not being encouraged officially in the province. He added that the move would benefit artists because they would get paid for re-airing or repeat telecast.

Laiqzada Laiq, noted poet, said that it would address many issues and problems being faced by them. He said that legislation would help revive art and cultural activities and also it would ensure safety and recognition of the work of the performers across the board.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2022