Listening To The Radio At Work? Prepare To Be Sued 486
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?"
They sure are greedy (Score:5, Interesting)
sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL -- My understanding in the US, is that it would be ok to listen to the RADIO in this setting, but not to bring in your own CDs and blast them out. The difference being that the Radio station is paying the royalties for a public performance. Any lawyers want to comment?
Re:sigh (Score:3, Interesting)
"Using the radio/CD/Casset player for anyone other than the owner is AGAINST THE LAW, AND MAY LEAD TO HARSH FINES."
Disturbing.
How about a counter suit, just for fun? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good thing I hate listening to radio! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wow -ACTUALLY, NOT EXACTLY (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, not exactly. While radio does pay royalties to the song writer, it is the only major country that DOESN'T pay royalties to the record company and/or performers. Why? Because it's considered free advertising for the sale of that song and the concert performances for the artists.
In fact, to borrow the In The Soviet Union line...
In the United States, Payola goes to the radio station.
Solution (Score:1, Interesting)
If anyone can suggest any improvements to my scheme, please reply ASAP. The Companies are losing every millisecond you hesitate.
This is the norm in Germany (Score:3, Interesting)
There's an organisation called "GEMA [www.gema.de]" who actively look out for their customers' interests, which includes scouting round for shops, restaurants etc. who commit the heinous crime of playing music from CDs, radios etc. they already own.
One Radio, one person. (Score:3, Interesting)
Note that the basic logic is not entirely off. In that, snarkiness aside, each premise does follow from the others. The hard part for them to claim is that this magic property of sound to travel from speakers to more than one pair of ears is novel and, in some way, something that they were not previously aware of.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Muzak (Score:3, Interesting)
Precisely.
BTW, you haven't lived until you've heard the Muzak instrumental version of Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell" followed back-to-back by the Muzak version of Tom Petty's "Refugee". Absolutely breathtaking.
Re:Somebody please, stop the madness (Score:5, Interesting)
Nasrudin was walking down the street one day, and came upon a man arguing with a merchant who was selling stew out of a street stall. According to the merchant, the man spent all day hanging around next to the stall, inhaling the aroma of the stew, but not buying anything; the merchant was demanding compensation for the service that he provided.
Nasrudin, hearing this, took the man's money purse, held it near the merchant's head, and shook it gently for a few moments. Then he said: "Now you're even. He's smelled your food, and you've heard his money jingle."
Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Jesus.. I mean.. seriously.. do they even care about their perception with their customers anymore?
I've been taking it one step further than everyone who refuses to buy RIAA/CRIA/UKIA(?) recordings. I make my living in music and I'm doing everything I can to achieve and maintain my measure of "success" while not succumbing to these measures. Just a few weeks ago, I truthfully walked away from a potential career "discovery" because of the terms and games that would have been required to accept - I wasn't willing to sacrifice who I am, what I believe and what my art means to me. I don't know what I may have missed out on.. I can imagine certainly, but I do know exactly how much I wouldn't respect myself and that's far more important to me.
The whole entertainment industry is disgusting. I hope they keep blacking and withering their essence, they are their own cancer that's going to kill them slowly from the inside out.
Re:Somebody please, stop the madness (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Somebody please, stop the madness (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason a royalties board cares is that they charge fees based on the estimated size of the listening audience. That is why when you submit a request to play music in a commercial or in a store, you have to establish what use it will serve and approximately how many people will hear the music in a certain period of time. Likewise, you have to gauge a radio station's audience to guesstimate how much to charge them.
My point is that -- unless a ton of these people who are listening second-hand are Nielson families (where their listening is actually recorded much like television) -- then what does it matter? The people listening to a single radio would not be counted as individual listeners *ANYWAY*.
Let me put it another way. If ten Nielson Families all watch the same television show on a single television together -- it counts as a single viewer. If ten Nielson Families each watch ten separate televisions, it counts as ten viewers. If ten NON-Nielson Families watch one or ten televisions at a time, it doesn't matter -- because the fact that they are watching is not trackable either way.
So these people listening in an office could not be tracked whether they each had their own radio or not. It would not affect the reported numbers, the estimated audience, the reports to the royalties board or the royalties that would be collected. Not in any way on earth whatso-freaking-ever.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
There are very good reasons why no one takes the entertainment industry seriously, and why the entertainment industry has so much trouble stopping "piracy'. The industry has cried wolf for so long, that no sane person cares.
Are you from the US of A? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not, but even 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.
Offcourse, this involved goverments but since back then the lines between goverment and business was often very blurred (unlike today when we see absolutly no blurring of any kind *cough*) this might be considered a case of a very succesfull (if you are an american) embargo against a company that pushed its customers too far.
Does it work in other cases? Well, note the difference in genetically engineered products in the US of A and europe, the europeans have long since been against any such crap and so companies make it very clear that they don't put it in their products.
More or less any normal business listens to its customers, the problems start to occur when a business becomes more then just trying to sell you a product and becomes a power. Your local supermarket is a business, Walmart is close to being a Power, the RIAA is a power. What do I mean by that? You can easily shop somewhere else then your local supermarket, it has no control over you, if the local manager does something you don't like, it is easy to boycot him. It is far harder to get around Walmart. Or for the dutch, AH. If AH does something bad, you are soon faced with the problem that they own many other chain of supermarkets as well.
The RIAA is even worse, in many cases they ARE music. The have become almost a legal power like the tax offices, they can collect their music tax for any music they like even if the original owner doesn't want them too. This would be roughly the same as the police ticketing people for driving to fast on private property (they can't and don't do this, this is why racetracks can operate).
It is very hard to get around the various music copyright groups because no matter what music you listen too, they have been given control over it.
But succesfull embargo's are legion, blacks boycotting businesses in america, the India rebellion against british rule etc etc.
On a much small scale, there were temporary success against the fur trade. Against whaling and sealing.
Embargo's work, even against semi-goverment organisations, but the "people" need a lot of will power to pull it off. Often the answer is that somebody equally powerfull takes up the fight, in recent years that have been popstars, who through their fame could pull the people into a single group to raise a voice. Bit of a pity that popstars and the RIAA are in the same bed eh?
I know one person who won't object (Score:4, Interesting)
He is forced to use an mp3 player with other stuff on just to drown out the endless stream of drivel that is pumped out in the name of pop music. Ok its not all that bad, but I am told that when you hear the same 'hit' several times an hour for weeks on end it does not please. I sort of know what he means, I worked in a factory for a time while at university, and they did the same. I couldn't escape to an mp3 player though.
Stopping this playing of music to an entire factory floor without regard to the people actually working (who cares about the royalties collection people) would not be a bad thing in all cases.
Re:Somebody please, stop the madness (Score:2, Interesting)
But it is the law in Finland.
Taxi drivers and barber shops (etc.) must pay (a little) to Gramex (RIAA equivalent in this sense) for "public performance".
Re:...stop the madness... French answer to Ghandi (Score:2, Interesting)
France, in the peroid 1286 to 1790 had its own hated salt tax , the "Gabelle"...
(italics added )
END Wikipedia extraction
1. Artificially overprice a commodity
2. Make use of ( actually "payment for") that commodity mandatory
3. PROFIT!
Re:Somebody please, stop the madness (Score:4, Interesting)
Um, I recall maybe 10 years ago, some Canadian Newspapers started suing local fast food joints for permitting patrons to leave their newspapers behind for other people to read.
They are licensed for use by just one person, don't you know! No sharing, even at home!
Or I could be drunk and saw this on some old Dr. Who episode...
This is UK law (Score:2, Interesting)
For this particular case the cost per annum should be £59.36 + VAT
The money collected is distributed to its members - the rights holders. This includes the big record companies but also independent musicians.
Everything you need to know is here: http://www.prs.co.uk? [prs.co.uk]