Listening To The Radio At Work? Prepare To Be Sued

MLCT writes "The Performing Rights Society, one of the UK's royalties collecting societies, has taken a Scottish car servicing company to court because the employees are alleged to have been listening to the radio at work, allowing the music to be 'heard by colleagues and customers'. The PRS is seeking £200,000 in damages for the 'performances of the music' which they claim equates to copyright infringement. The judge, Lord Emslie, has ruled that the case can continue to hearing evidence, commenting that the key point to note was that music was 'audibly blaring from employee's radios'. Where do the extents of a 'public performance' end? Radios on in cabs?"

seriously???

[WwWonka]

seriously?...um...seriously? SERIOUSLY? hold on, let me think about this one a little more...............seriously????

Must be quite a performance....

[btavshan]

I never knew watching the guys wash your car counted as a performance. I suppose I'm more of a performing arts snob than I thought....

This isn't *all* bad...

[EvanED]

If they lose, sanity prevails.

But if they win, it provides precedent to sue anyone driving by with their car stereo too loud, so at least we get something out of the mess.

That really is stupid

[Reality Master 201]

I mean, holy shit, that's possibly the stupidest thing I ever heard.

Thumpmobiles

[anagama]

When the hell is someone going to sue the idiots with the car stereos I can hear a mile away?!!!

Damn right -- get the hell off my lawn.

Re:sigh

[CompuGeek]

Or have to pay because a person can smell baking bread at the bakery.

HEY! Performing Rights Society..

[YrWrstNtmr]

Kiss
My
Ass

Seriously. WTF do you want? Payment for each and every set of ears that might be in close proximity to a set of speakers that is playing stuff you've already been paid for.

Let me reiterate...
Kiss. My. Ass.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already illegal.

I buy at least 4 copies of each CD, with a separate player and headphones for each. When friends come over, we synchronize playback with the familiar 3-2-1 countdown. Are you saying you don't follow the procedure?

Re:It's the law

[Dunbal]

you have to contect your elected representatives

      I have no idea how to contect them, but hopefully it's a process that involves a lot of pain on their part.

What?!

[morari]

I've called the police several times because I could hear the music of the tenant in the downstairs apartment! Nothing ever happens. I was hoping for a noise violation, but this seems much sweeter...

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Duhavid]

What about second hand smoke?

I think the tobacco companies should sue
everyone for enjoying their products at
second ( or even third ) hand.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[f2x]

And lo- the absurdities continue. How much more of this legalism must we endure before their system implodes? It seems that the implementation of the myriad of laws is shifting around faster than the rules in a game of "Calvin Ball". You would expect that at sooner or later, these smirking litigators will eventually take a bite of their own poison, but time after time it seems they get away with their asinine behavior, and move on to plot another ludicrous litigation against people who just don't want to have anything to do with them.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[xjimhb]

What's next? Perhaps the newspaper will sue you if you hold a copy so somebody can read over your shoulder?

Re:It's the law

[GaryPatterson]

First the ignored us.
Then they laughed at us.
Then then fought us (costing many of us fines of several thousand, and some people were fined everything and live in squalid bankrupcy to this day)
Then we win (except for everyone sued or taken to court and/or the cleaners by the system that supported the big companies)

Um... Yay?

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Foobar of Borg]

In other news, I'll sue you for copyright infringement for when you quote me on slashdot Or, if you repeat something said on the simpsons

In Soviet Russia, Yakov Smirnoff sues YOU!

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Your Pal Dave]

Somebody should compensate me for having to listen to the idiotic station that the jerk in the next cubicle listens to!

Re:seriously???

[LWATCDR]

It could only happen in America. The Us has a broken legal system. Thank goodness nothing that stupid could ever happen in the EU...
Oh never mind.

Re:Thumpmobiles

[oddaddresstrap]

Never. For them to be sued, you'd have to prove that they were playing a copyrighted tune, which is impossible given the volume level and the fact that everything within the said mile is resonating.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[ibentmywookie]

Somebody should compensate me for having to listen to the idiotic station that the jerk in the next cubicle listens to!

I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...

Re:This isn't *all* bad...

[dskoll]

Now if only we could sue idiots who listen to portable music players on the bus and turn the volume up just loud enough to (a) liquefy their brains and (b) annoy the hell out of fellow passengers...

Re:sigh

[shutdown -p now]

Well, if we are to learn anything from that old story, then we should keep paying them with the modern analogue of the sound of coins in a shaked purse. Emailed images of scanned dollar bills for the appropriate amount should do the trick!

There may be an upside...

[DaveAtFraud]

Does this mean I can sick the RIAA on the guy in the car in the next lane for blaring his bad taste in music at everyone within a thousand yards of his car? Could be a useful precedent.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Propaganda13]

(facially) comitting a tresspass to the person

This is my new phrase for the moneyshot.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[cashman73]

I'll ... I'll ... I'll ... set the building on fire! I'll ... I'll ... put strychnine in the guacamole!

Re:Must be quite a performance....

[Doctor Faustus]

I never knew watching the guys wash your car counted as a performance.
All the carwash fundraisers cheerleading squads like to do are pretty clearly performances, even if they wouldn't like to admit it.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Capsaicin]

So jam it. A nice, dirty, square wave oscillator should do the trick.

Why would you bother doing that when you can just call APRA and inform them that of an ongoing copyright violation? ;)

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[SageMusings]

As long as there are un-purchased Bentleys out there, lawyers are forced to explore these legal issues. Seriously, their backs are against the wall on this.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Bert64]

They are technically committing an act of terrorism...
They are willfully subjecting other people to an airborne chemical agent known to cause harm.

Re:Are you from the US of A?

[init100]

I heard of a small case that happened on your shores when a company went to far. Ever heard of the British East India Company? It had to do with some added tax/levy or something being added to tea. I think it caused a bit of a riot in boston, local affair, easy to miss but some people were upset about it.

Are you joking? I would have modded you +1 Funny just for this. Surely you must have heard the name Boston Tea Party [wikipedia.org]? And a local affair? According to many historians it helped spark the American Revolution.

Re:Are you from the US of A?

[Karthikkito]

What about "+1 Whoosh"?

Re:They sure are greedy

[clickclickdrone]

>This has nothing to do with the artists. In fact, the artists will never see a penny of this.
Not my understanding. PRS log every track and when/where it was played - they wouldn't bother if it didn't get to the artist. In fact I knew someone who used to make a fair living starting a multitude of 'bands' with similar names and relying on typos when keying in data for picking up a few quid here and there e.g. calling himself U3 and self publishing a single called 'New Years Eve' then picking up a % of U2/New Years Day income.

hmmm....a new tactic to deal with boom cars?

[vanillacokehead]

Maybe I'll start writing down the license plate numbers of cars from which loud music emanates and report them to the RIAA. That'll show those obnoxious twits who think everyone within a 100-yard radius wants to hear their hip-hop music. Maybe the RIAA would sue the cars' owners for illegally performing the music - and the makers and installers of car stereos for enabling said activity. Ahhh, the possibilities... Maybe I can get Rush Limbaugh to sue my co-worker because he listens to Rush's show every day and Rush would consider it a "public performance".... :) Seriously, this does seem kind of ridiculous....

Re:Are you from the US of A?

[Myopic]

Ever heard of the British East India Company? It had to do with some added tax/levy or something being added to tea. I think it caused a bit of a riot in boston, local affair, easy to miss but some people were upset about it.

Yes, I am from the US of A, and I can tell you all about your little event there. That was Custer's Last Stand, which was a legendary battle between Texans and Mexicans during the Civil War. The whole dirty affair was caused by yellow journalism. It was a sad battle, napalm was used all over the place. Eventually we had to end the war by dropping a nuclear bomb. We commemorate that day every year on September 11. Most Americans don't know much about it, thought, since it happened almost seventy years ago now.