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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.
at least this isn't in america... but what is this world coming to? What's with all these fee's tacked on to everything?!!
One thing I've noticed is that a "$35/mo" cell phone plan isn't even questioned when the bill arrives for $40.83... That's $5.83 in taxes and fees! 17% taxes/fees... plus you pay a sales tax on the phone in most states... and an income tax on the money you used to buy the phone...
At least in Sweden when you pay the 90% income tax up front you know you're getting hosed.
How will the authorities know if the taxi driver had the radio turned on or off? Will they have a sting operation where an undercover officer hails a taxi, gets in, and then busts the the driver if they turn on the radio but haven't payed the fee?
unless the song is public domain... yes... they would have to pay licensing fees to use the lyrics.
Well then they can ask the passenger if they want to listen to the radio, then charge them a minimal fee for the royalty. As long as it is REPORTED.
or add 1 cent/passenger.
That shouldn't be too expensive.
But IMHO, it's ridiculous to impose this ordinance.
Depends on the copyright of the songs. If they were all public domain, no.
Now, all the driver would have to do is prove it. Annually. With expensive lawyers.
Yes, he would have to go to court to prove it, because the local RIAA clone would want to make it expensive to buck their system. To that end, they would benefit from spending several thousand to bring doubt into the mind of a jury that he really didn't stick to public domain music only.
Then, after 'proving' him a liar, they'd hit him with punitive damages as hard as possible to keep all the other sheep in line.
Things are getting bad, and they're only going to get worse. This crap will continue.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
This makes me wonder how the taxi driver fits into this picture at all, economically speaking. Are the taxi drivers making money off of the radio? Do they charge people extra to listen to the radio? Do people frequent taxi services that play the radio more often than those who don't? Probably not, so why are they being forced to pay up? It just seems wrong.
Moderators, what the hell is so funny about that? This is in essence exactly what the Finnish Supreme Court decided, with the one provision that money is being made in the vicinity. There's no reason now the RIAA can't go after your office if you listen to the radio while you work, or hear the radio played by the coworker in the next cubicle.
How the fuck did we get to a point where possibly the least important industry imaginable has such immense, outrageous, incomprehensible-to-our-ancestors influence and power?
I believe they want to charge cab drivers because taxi services are businesses that make money. By playing the radio, you are "enhancing" the taxi ride experience, and the music industry thinks they should be compensated. I don't necessarily agree with this philosophy, so don't flame me please. Just thought I'd point out what the issue is really about.
Vote for Pedro
Theres roughly a 0.00003% chance of me getting into a taxi in finland and the driver playing a cd of his own band. Get real. You have a better chance of winning the powerball lottery. This is nothing more than a socialist government wanting a cut of something.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Anytime you use music (that you don't own the rights to) in a business environment, you have to pay. This includes if you play the radio in a retail store or other business, or if you have music on hold, etc.
This is because it's considered a public performance.
In the US, most businesses are using music services like Muzak, AEI (now part of DMX) or others which include the royalty fees as part of their service fees.
Should cab drivers be allowed to show movies in their cabs? What about a bar? If you think they should be allowed to without paying any royalties, then why shouldn't I be allowed to open my own second run movie house with a video projector and lots of DVDs?
When commercial radio plays, the radio station usually pays whatever fees are associated with the music they are playing. Those fees are often paid by the sponsors who also have their advertisements played on those same airwaves.
The fees are already paid whether or not someone listens to it. This is double taxation... paying for something that has already been paid for. What kind of moronic nonsense is this?
The problem with this logic is that there doesn't really seem to be any business advantage to playing the radio in a cab. In a resturant, one can argue that the muzak contributes to the ambiance of the resturant. It's unlikely that it does in a cab. Furthermore, as one generally picks a cab based on it's being available to be hailed, having good music gives no particular cabdriver any competitive advantage in attracting customers. Unlike a resturant, where you could argue the resturant makes money from customers who go to that resturant because they like the ambiance, including the muzak, it's unlikely it's possible to hail a particular cab b/c of the music, so the cabbie isn't making addititional profit from playing the music.
I have blog like everyone else
I used to think it would be cool to live in Finland. I thought they were a mellow, friendly, low-key kinda country. They are hard asses. Check out this link about traffic some fines in Finland... HARDCORE. Looks like they base their fines on a percentage of your YEARLY income... doh!
I seriously wish other countries would be equally harsh. It encourage people to actually drive responsibly. Perhaps it would the 50000 odd annual traffic deaths in th U.S.
This logic already exists in the US, but it's not the territory of the RIAA, it's the territory of ASCAP/BMI.
This is the toll-master of the music publishing business. Whenever a song by the artist formerly known as Prince (but now again known as Prince) has a song played, he gets a clink in the bank. If Tom Jones remakes another one of his songs (God please no), then Prince gets more money as his music is published through ASCAP/BMI.
ASCAP/BMI assures that those who write music are paid for it when it is used, regardless who sings it. It's actually not a bad system because it assures that song writers like Burt Bacharach keep churning out music, and bad singers keep recording them.
Where it goes horribly wrong is that the record companies themselves seem to be pretty much exempt from the ASCAP/BMI fees. ASCAP/BMI seems to concentrate on radio stations, the music-on-hold for businesses, bars, Muzak and now, Finish taxicabs.
Now and again, when you walk into a dance club or bar, you'll see a yellow sticker proudly displayed with the letters ASCAP. It means that this bar owner actually paid his yearly fees.
Why is it that so many comments bring up either the fact that the radio already pays royalties, so it's insane to force the cabbies to pay double taxes OR the fact that other businesses already pay royalties for having a radio? Shouldn't the real focus of the discussion be the question why anybody has to pay royalties for something that has already been paid for by the radio stations? That legislation was bad to begin with, partly because of the slippery slope risks of it, which are becoming very apparent now. Unfortunately, $20/year is a low fee on a per-fare basis, so I'm afraid most drivers and/or taxi companies will pay up, but I'd rather they didn't, because it is going to end up as an extra cost for the passenger, and I really don't want to pay any money for bad music, which is the only kind of music played on the radio anyway (if they are even playing any music - the last time I turned that hideous thing they were just advertising bad music) to some nauseatingly terrorist organization like the Recording Industry Army of America or their local cells.
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
The law is not written in C. Unless you used the C to write a fuzzy logic processor and then used.... well never mind. It's not simply black and white. Remember that next time lament that all is lost.
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
It is another way of destroying your rights. If they make it 20 dollars it isn't too bad. But after you get used to the 20 dollars which isn't right, but you feel is worth it not to fight the fight, maybe you will get used to 30, 40, 50, 100, 1000 dollars a year.
Even if it were 1 Penni, I would say no.
--Joey
Most cab drivers play the radio for their pleasure, not the passenger's. I can't remember the last time a driver asked me what I'd like to hear; and their tastes always differ from mine. So we already know that they aren't "adding value" to their facilities.
Intellectual property is self-maximizing: if something can be charged for, it will be charged for; and property holders will always seek out more opportunities for extortion (e.g., Licensing 6).
What the media cartels are trying to do here is look for every venue where licensing could conceivably apply, regardless of how absurd. Cafés, I'm sure, will be next (Starbucks already licenses the tracks on their playlists, then redistribute/resell them as compilations; other coffeehouses subscribe to satellite radio. The way I see it, every place of business that plays something other than Muzak will be charged for the privilege of advertising the cartel's content.
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). Before the mid-1990s none of this was really an issue. Then along came the Internet and the RIAA and MPAA became household words. Seriously, did ANYONE know what the RIAA was before attacks against Napster? Did you ever worry when you were sitting in your room in the 1980s with your friends dubbing tapes on your tape-to-tape high speed dubbing recorder that you were STEALING from the RIAA.. err, the artists? 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? Where DID we go wrong allowing them to grab too much power? Frankly we should be demanding our legislators abolish copyrights altogether. The industries that benefit most from it have shown they will use every underhanded legal tactic to fuck over the consumer using an artificially conceived notion of "intellectual property".
is if they start a royalty rate for all people present in the car during a car pool. Everytime you buy a CD, you must fill out a form stating how many friends you have and how often they drive with you while listening to music. ...RIAA is just getting out of hand... when is someone going to stop them??
Good thing the only stuff I sing was written in the twenties, and most of it has "Traditional" listed as the author.
It's a good day to have the blues.
It's a crock of shit in my opinion, and should be flagrantly ignored. Ever listened to the statement made at the end of an NFL game? It goes something like this Any re-broadcast, description or accounts of this event are prohibited without the express written consent of the NFL. Accounts? Descriptions? Every time I hear that I want to call the NFL commissioner and tell him to go fuck himself.
This kind of crap is getting severely out of hand. It really makes me wonder what kind of souless retards we have working in management in these industries that think these things are a good idea.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
This is a topic that has already been beat to death, but I feel I must go on the record. (No pun intended).
The RIAA and its memeber companies are fighting a battle they can not win. Bottom line. Their product is not worth paying for. People will (as the quoted person says) ride around in silence before they will be bullied into buying something that the majority of true artists in the world are willing to give away for free. I personally give'em less than 5 years and we will see airline style chapter 11s in the recording industry. Plenty of honest work out there entertaining the public for the employees so I say..."Hasta La Vista Baby"...
(Ooops that is a quote...now the MPAA will get me.)