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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.
More proof that the RIAA is ripping off artists. When Napster was required to remove all songs under RIAA copyright, the RIAA was supposed to provide a list. They couldn't. IIRC, they just insisted that Napster should somehow *know* which ones were and which ones weren't.
Perhaps this will be used as an argument for DRM, Hollings Style!
oh, but it is!
Girls Scouts must pay to sing songs...
"Starting this summer, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers has informed camps nationwide that they must pay license fees to use any of the four million copyrighted songs written or published by Ascap's 68,000 members. Those who sing or play but don't pay, Ascap warns, may be violating the law."
the story
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Winston Churchill: THE WAR SITUATION: HOUSE OF MANY MANSIONS, broadcast, London, January 20, 1940
So, here we are back at the Dark Ages!
Here in the USA the copyright laws regarding the radio are quite a bit more liberal. They state that you may play a radio in your place of business without paying a royalty if the radio is: "self contained and unmodified". In other words, it must be a standard radio without extension speakers such as a boom box that uses it's own internal speakers. I would assume that a factory installed car radio would also qualify though an aftermarket one would probably fall into a gray area. The court case (what else?) that decided this is known as the "Gap" case, after the clothing chain of the same name. They had installed component stereos with multiple speakers in all their stores and got pinched for playing the radio through them. They were found liable because they were using multiple extension speakers. These days, many retail establishments and restaurants don't play the radio. Instead they sign up for a service such as Digital Music Express (DMXmusic.com)that pay blanklet rates to Ascap, BIM and Sesac. A side to this story is that yesterday two commonly owned radio stations in Pittsburgh got pinched for infringing on Sesac's copyright to the tune of 1.5 million dollars.
I had to destroy a recording of Handel's Messiah. I handled the recording and also played in the bass section. Our orchestra scores were clear, but the choir sung from sheets that were "arranged" after the end of copy rights, 1922.
Go to the Harry Fox Agency and you will find dozens of people claiming copyright on Handel's Messiah one way or another.
It was for a small run, fund raising CD and the licensing hassles outweighed the benefits so we destroyed the recording. Still its great fun to perform it. If anyone asks you, you should accept.
Hymns have similar problems. You need to work from a pre-1922 hymnal to be clear, but you can't buy those.
I have a similar problem with traditional folk music. Everyone and their dog that ever published an album for a label with a traditional song claims ownership. I have to find documentation that the song predates 1922 to use it royalty free.
I always hate having to ask the cabbie to turn off the damn radio. I feel bad because I've already asked him to get off the cell phone, and I'm lowering the tip by a dollar for every request I'm forced to make. This makes absolutely no sense since the radio is obviously only for the drivers benefit, it being in the front of the cab after all. I could see some people paying an extra 25 cents for turning on a back seat radio, but the cabbie's radio is just a nuisance for the rider.
ASCAP uses "spies" to find this kind of thing. They literally pay people to go into bars/stores/restaurants etc. and listen for music. If they hear music, and you're not paying, you get a nasty letter from a lawyer. This happened to my favorite bar a while back (it was a hole in the wall, the patrons held an auction once a month to keep the lights on and the door open, lets put it that way... but we liked it. Dartboard, pool table, Guinness) I think we found out who the infiltrator was, but the legal threat and resultant bills were just another of the straws that broke the camel's back. Here's the kicker: they weren't pissed about the jukebox, and there wasn't a radio. Just a TV that was on when it was slow and the bartender was bored (although they would probably try to charge you for the customers hearing the background music on the car commercials). No, they were upset because there was a small, unknown, local startup band that did a gig in there. They did (what they thought) was an old Irish folk tune. Nope. That song was on the list, busted, if you don't want to fight us in court pay up. Fucking bastards. We couldn't afford to pay everyone that wanted a cut, it was sort of a bar that was just there for people that liked it and no one really wanted to change it; it was just one of those places that had been there forever. Done. Gone. Dead. Could the patrons afford to keep the landlord happy? Yeah. Could we keep the city off our back? Yeah again, did both for a while. Could we afford a lawyer to fight the recording industry over inadvertant infractions that we had no control over? NO. If you have live music, it seems, you have to know every song on the playlist, know who if anyone has the rights on it, and pay accordingly. If you don't know and you can't afford legal help, you can't have live music once they sic onto you. Then your establishment dies if that's what brings people in. A big FUCK YOU to the recording industry is in order here. And of course, no suggestions on what should be done to ASCAP infiltrators if their cover is blown, although I'm sure you can imagine some :)