Finnish Taxi Drivers Must Pay Music Royalties

jonerik writes "According to this story from Ananova, Finland's Supreme Court has ruled that taxi drivers must pay royalty fees of about $20 annually if they play music in their car while a customer is in the backseat. According to the article, 'Lauri Luotonen, chairman of the Helsinki Taxi Drivers' Association, says the ruling is likely to force most drivers to keep their radios off.'" This includes if they play the radio, which ostensibly already pays such fees.

Yowch.

[Freston Youseff]

That's almost more outrageous than the tarrifs you have to pay when entering and exiting San Fransisco in a taxi. Sheesh!

This concept exists here in America too.

[Blaede]

Any business establishment that plays music (retail stores especially) in earshot of all customers must pay royalties (figure unknown to me). Not everyone pays, it mostly is enforced against large retail and department store chains. The upshot of the law is a clerk can have a small radio at their station, but if you broadcast music over the store speaker system, then you must pay.

Re:What if...

[kevcol]

Wow- I was moderating but my jaw dropped when I read this and had to post:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c ommunications/ASCAP.html [umkc.edu]

"They buy paper, twine and glue for their crafts - they can pay for the music, too," says John Lo Frumento, ASCAP's chief operating officer. If offenders keep singing without paying, he says, we will sue them if necessary."

Here's what BMI has to say about this...

[Blaede]

...in a very general way: http://www.bmi.com/licensing/business/groupc/faq/b owling_answers.asp

Perhaps those cabbies should install a bowling lane, they'd get reduced rates.

In any case, the theory is that playing music in an establishment enhances the music making ability of the business, and it is not being used for strict personal enjoyment, and thus the business must pay up.

Re:This concept exists here in America too.

[dorsey]

Small businesses with fewer than four speakers per room and no more than six speakers total are exempt from paying royalties.

Re:What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you post anonymously, you can keep moderating!

Re:What if...

[Maxwell_E]

As silly as it sounds, the report if sensationalized, is true. Well, true enough that ASCAP used to have a link on their website with some serious damage control and such.

Note the date:

http://www.ascap.com/press/ascap-082696.html
I remember reading the spin doctor from ASCAP on it and their position pretty quickly backpedaled on it. A quick search on google turned up the above link as well as this discussion:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/7397

Re:What if...

[Permission Denied]

Now, Ring Around the Rosie is a centuries old nursery rhyme that most know dates back to the time of the Black Death. I won't go into the details, but thats what it is about.

I had never heard this before. To verify, I typed "ring around the rosie" into google, and this [ualberta.ca] is the first hit. here's [snopes.com] the third hit from snopes.com, an interesting website which I would be inclined to believe.

Re:For listening.....

[AndroidCat]

Honestly? Corrupt politicians bowing before their music and movie industry masters in some of the most influential states of the union (New York, California, basically all liberal strongholds).

Odd, wasn't NYC basically a loyalist hotbed during the Revolutionary War? And in other conservative swings, Nelson Rockefeller from NY state, no? And Ronnie Raygun from California. Stronghold, you keep using that word... (Don't sweat it, many Americans believe that they've always had a two party system. Yeah Free Silver and the Know Nothing Party!)

Before the mid-1990s none of this was really an issue.

Yes it was.

Did you ever fear that thugs would be breaking down your door and carting away all your stereo equipment, or that you'd be dragged into court and brought up on charges?

Sort of like why the film industry moved to California in the first place? Edison goons were beating the hell out of them. The desert weather and lack on rain had nothing to do with it. (Much.)

Likewise, Jake V. doesn't want an equal playing-field. He wants movies made in LA, maybe SF, rented forever. I'd check him out for organized crime links (if they'd stoop so low).

Had dinner II, bed time, night!

Re:Yowch.What the hell is this guy talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well....living in San Francisco I've never seen nor heard of any sort of "Tarrif" when taking a cab into or out of a city. Before you mod someone up as "informative" do some fact checking. This guy is completely wrong. The only thing that might be construed as a tarrif is the Airport Exit fee (which applies regardless of destination, san francisco or not), and perhaps the bridge tolls, but that'll happen whether you're in a taxi or not.

What a dumb post.

Then give passengers their radio with earphones!

[Anonymous Coward]

So everybody in the cab cannot listen to other radios. The driver should also stick a paper somewhere that explains clearly - in foreign language too - why s/he is forced to do that.

The organisation in question is this:

[10Ghz]

www.teosto.fi

Please, Slashdot them!

Re:$103,600 speeding ticket

[chefren]

Since fines are income dependent in Finland, we should try to get Bill Gates to do some speeding here too.

Re:For listening.....

[Bisqwit]

There is a difference.

The decision states that taxi is a public place.

Playing copyrighted music in public place has always (years at least) been (in Finland) like this: Play, pay.

Your room or your office is not a public place.
You don't need to pay for playing there, even if somebody is listening.
If you removed the walls and played so that the music is heard on streets, it might be different...

This isn't so simple thing though.
According to the news, the question was battled for about five years. Taxidrivers apparently lost the battle.

finland is the country of endless royalties

[mkv]

You should know that here in Finland, we pay royalties in every cd-r, dvd-r (and other format medias), video cassette or whatever media we buy. Yes, if your company provides you with a signed certificate saying that you are going to use the media you buy for storing only work-related material, you get a discount but still the system sucks. Teosto, our trustee for supervising the interests of artists, is trying to get this royalty for hard disks also. Also, if you broadcast music legally via radio and stream your broadcast via internet also, you have to pay a "media conversion fee" of some sort.

Additional information

[markholmberg]

- according to the ruling, that specific taxi driver had to pay 22 euros, because
a) there weren't many people travelling at one time
b) because the trips had been short
c) because of the number of fares he'd had that year
d) Taxi is a public place because anyone can get in one, meaning that the taxi driver and the passenger(s) are not listening to music but the taxi driver is _performing_ music.

The ruling doesn't mean that all drivers will have to pay 22 euros but that now they know how to calculate it. So as the taxi driver tried to convince the judges that he hadn't "performed" that much, it might actually hurt the other taxi drivers as the fee will be much higher for them.
Link to the ruling(Finnish): http://www.kko.fi/ennakkoratkaisut/2002-101.htm

And to make this more fun for all you non-Finnish, previous rulings in Finland include
a) if a prisoner watches TV it is a public performance
b) performances in a teaching situation are public performances
c) playing music in physical care institutions are a public performance
and finally my favourite...
d) showing a photograph in a meeting of the local "club" for retired people (10 grannies gathered around to drink coffee) is a public performance of the photo. No joking here.
Source: http://www.minedu.fi/opm/asiantuntijat/tekijanoike usneuvosto/neuv_lausunnot/1997/tn9705.htm

Re:This concept exists here in America too.

[Lumpy]

LIE!!!!!

Many businesses subscribe to what is called MUZAK a commercial background music service. They only pay for their subscription they do NOT pay royalties. Also companies can purchase a special business subscription to digital cable that carries 100 digital music channels to put on in their establishment.

if for one second you think that every doctor,dentist,lawyer,accountant,store,elevator and resturant in america pay's royalties to the RIAA you are mistaken... they pay for a service from a company that pay's the royalties.

And yes, if you want to you can put any broadcast radio station on in your establishment without paying the royalties as the RADIO STATION is "supposedly paying them" (although we know the bigger ones are getting payola to play the top 40 songs)

now if you grab a bunch of CD's and start playing them for the customers... then you are gonna have to pay... but 95% of the stores and businesses just turn on the radio or their music subscription (that has no adverts in it)

Re:This makes the case

[markhlfs]

Two spring immediately to mind:

http://www.mutopiaproject.org [mutopiaproject.org] and http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/music [ibiblio.org].

The latter is part of PG itself.