Chairman of the Jamaica Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers (JACAP) Paul Barclay is urging local radio to play more Jamaican music in order to increase returns from royalties.

According to the chairman at JACAP's recent open house forum, JACAP had to pay 65 per cent of the almost $150 million collected in royalties to overseas creators because enough Jamaican music is not being played.

"Imagine what 50 per cent of that money could do to alleviate the hardships of our Jamaican creators and improve our economic status if more local music is played on our stations!" the JACAP chairman said.

Barclay said JACAP collects royalties on behalf of music creators worldwide and then redistributes the funds to the various societies abroad. He says the 65 per cent of royalties which is paid to foreign creators broadly represents the percentage of use of "foreign songs" to local songs on local radio. He, therefore, asks for musical patriotism from local radio.

"For every foreign song that is played over a local song, it represents a Jamaican disc jocky contributing to the earning of an overseas creator and denying a local creator income that is critical to contributing to the gross domestic product in Jamaica," he said.

The chairman is asking local artistes to make good music as well as to sign up with the relevant collecting societies. He also warns artistes to make their music available to radio stations that are compliant with copyright laws, citing that they (recording artistes) won't receive royalties from radio stations that are not compliant with the copyright laws nor those that do not possess a JACAP licence.

He also hinted that the Broadcasting Commission is expected to be more proactive in bringing radio to an acceptable level of compliance.

"The first and most important advice to local radio is to acknowledge that if they do not comply with the law and establish licences with the relevant collective management organisations like JACAP, It constitutes a breach of the copyright act. As such, they do not have the right to play any song whatsoever-local or foreign. That is simply a fact," Barclay said.

The chairman also encouraged local artistes to educate themselves on the relevant copyright laws.

"Local artistes do not attend free training seminars on copyright hosted by a number of organisations. As a result, they remain ignorant or have to rely on inaccurate information from others," Barclay concluded.