'Spirited Away' tops rank for music copyright revenue.

TOKYO, May 21 Kyodo

The theme music to Japanese film, ''Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away ),'' earned the most royalties in fiscal 2002, the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) said Wednesday.

Composed by Joe Hisashi for the award-winning Hayao Miyazaki film, the Spirited Away theme topped the rankings drawn up by JASRAC, which collects royalties from users of music in Japan. The next four highest earners were hits by popular Japanese female singers.

In second place behind Spirited Away, which was a box-office hit in Japan and earned several international awards, was the song ''traveling'' by popular Japanese singer and songwriter Hikaru Utada. Another song by Utada titled ''DISTANCE'' ranked fifth.

The third and fourth slots were filled, respectively, by Hitomi Shimatani's revival hit, ''Amairo no Kami no Otome,'' and Ayumi Hamasaki's ''Dearest.''

According to JASRAC officials, the total revenue of royalties collected over a one-year period until the end of March rose by 0.7% from the previous year to 106.06 billion yen.

Of this, royalties from music distributed mainly via mobile phone, used mostly for ring tones, increased about 90% over fiscal 2001 to some 7.6 billion yen, they said, adding the highest royalties collected this way were from Utada's song ''Sakura Drops.''