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Canadian Music Industry Drills Dentists
hereisnowhy writes "CBC reports that the tranquil music that wafts through many dental offices to soothe patients and mask the sounds of the drill may soon be silenced. The music industry is putting the bite on dentists -- demanding that they pay for the right to play it. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada would also like to extend this policy to 'coffee shops, clothing stores, lounges, elevators -- even radio tunes that people hear on the telephone while on hold.' Are any composers and authors actually in favour of this, or just the publishers?"
to playing music for the sheer artistry of it? I play music, and just the fact of someone WANTING to hear it would make me happy.
Jay | http://oldos.org
I used to work at a grocery store (I believe the title was "courtesy clerk", but I likened it to being the "head b!tch....:) ), and I asked my boss one day about the music that was pumped into the store. He replied that they subscribed to a certain radio feed and that was paid through the grocery company I worked for. It was a special feed, and the store had a tuner for the specific frequency or other.....
I would assume that most of these locations (stores, lounges, etc) follow the same sort of setup. My dentist played his own music, but I figure that would fall under fair-use, right? I mean, he's listening to it while he's working -
No fair use you say? Oh.....
My MythTV HowTo
I read all kinds of stories on Slashdot like this about someone being upset that someone else is enjoying some form of art without paying for the privilege. It always makes me wonder about the goals of the artists.
It seems to me that a true artist would want as many people as possible to enjoy their creation. The internet and file-sharing should be a great enabler for this, as anyone anywhere with internet access can see, hear or read their art. It is truly liberating and democratizing, making art available to all instead of only those who can afford it.
Whenever I hear an artist complain that too many people are enjoying their work without paying, I smell a rat. If you are creating art to get rich, you're not really an artist, at least by my admittedly narrow definition. Art should be its own reward. A true artist would create and distribute their work even if there was no compensation for it and they had to work a day job to make ends meet. There are countless examples of this. The passion for their craft drives them, not a desire for monetary gain (though this sometimes is a byproduct).
As to record companies and other copyright holding entities, I understand that for their business to survive, they must try to protect their assets. I just happen to think that their business model is hopelessly outdated in the midst of the digital revolution.
We are at a turning point of the information age. Will information become truly free or will access to it be controlled by "information barons"?
I'm going to hum a tune, and you can pay for the pleasure of hearing it. Then again, maybe its no longer even legal for me to hum the tune to start with, unless I bought the album, and its being hummed on an approved playback/humming device....?
This is just plain greedy.
I think we already have this kind of thing here in Australia?
ascap will sue your bar even if you only have artists playing their on (non-ascap) original material. its an extortion racket and everybody knows it. they certainly have the legal clout. they claim that 84% of their royalties go directly to the artists (mind you, much of it distributed based on radio airplay, regardless of the money's source).
however, 16% of $1.6 BILLION pays for a LOT of lawyers.
for example, if you only do public domain material, "trad arr." and all that, they'll still sue you because they can decide that your arraingment wasn't original, but based on an arraingment that is ASCAP protected. you can't win.
and a restaurant DOES have to pay ASCAP licensing, even if they only play the radio. all stores do.
yes, that means ASCAP gets paid 3 times over. 1) the radio station purchases the CD to play, at a higher rate than our retail version, and ASCAP gets their cut. 2) the radio station pays its broadcast license. 3) the restaurant or retail location pays a broadcast license based on the # of customers they have on average in the store at any time.
nobody wins except ascap. period.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
True, but I can't imagine anyone actually suffering through a dental appointment just to listen to some free music. I suspect this would easily qualify as fair use. Obviously commercial establishments where people actually go to listen to the music (bars, clubs, etc.) would have to pay, but a dentist??? One could even argue that a clothing store might attract more customers by playing music, but a dentist??? Yikes, talk about picking on the wrong group.
This is a standard shake-down in the U.S. Entertainment and IP lawyers get calls all the time from business owners asking "Can they do that? Do I have to pay these bastards money for playing my fsking radio?"
The answer is usually, yes. The exceptions are very narrow.
(Ever wonder why restaurant chains sing hokey made-up songs instead of the nominal "happy birthday?" Licensing fees -- money -- that's why.)
One exception, in the U.S. at least, is to play only material that is in the public domain, not subject to (ascap/bmi) licensing. As an example, Fry's in Sunnyvale plays classical piano music which is free of licensing. In the U.S., there are collections of CDs full of such material.
Of course when a business takes such an approach, the licensing authorities (sic) will make the assumption that you are a crook, and they will watch carefully and wait for you to screw up -- and then sue your ass (arse, in Canada).
Consult an attorney familiar with these rackets. I imagine that there exists or will soon exist a standard set of recommendations for Canadian businesses who wish to remain free of licensing fees (and don't expect that guidance to come from the licensing societies).
What if I put a system in the company panel van and blasted it? Can a taxi cab driver have the radio on without paying up? Where will the insanity end?
What strikes me funny as the "outrage for having to pay for music" story goes another round on
I think there are two reasons:
commerce has pretended to give music to us for free: music is an expected part of the background in any store, at any event, for any time spent on hold. Radios broadcast the stuff for free, out of the goodness of their hearts.
Wait a second, no one does that. Strike that. Radios broadcast music for free because they receive ad revenue, and it is therefore in their economic interest to broadcast music without charge. Funny, stores do the same: a store with a soundtrack feels more polished to us because we aren't troubled by the chaos of other people's conversations. I suppose the ultimate example of soundtrack-polishing is Nordstrom's, with their live pianists.
So despite appearances music is not like air, but is used as a means of enhancing commerce. But we *think* it is, because of its ubiquitous presence in our lives.
Second, the commerce model followed by RIAA and friends stands in stark contrast to the professional model followed by classical music. In general, pop music pays by a royalty system. Concerts do provide some revenue, but the primary income stream even from concerts comes from royalties for sales of CDs and T-shirts. By contrast, classical musicians are salaried or payed per gig. (Can you imagine Perlman being payed a fee for every T-shirt sold at a Kennedy center concert?) So why does this matter? Because a salaried musician is far less likely to look for ever-more oppressive ways to squeeze revenue from his art. His salary is thus-and-so, and if he doesn't like it, well then, he negotiates with his employers.
But in a royalty system, the "employers" are the consumers. The revenue-squeezing tactics we see here are really ASCAP's way of trying to re-negotiate their salary. The RIAAs talk of "fairness" really is just rhetoric to get the foot in the door, and the squeezing will never stop.
So what is the solution? I think we all need to first acknowledge that our belief that music is free like air is simply wrong. Downloaders who expect to sample for free before paying have an unworkable expectation.
But, the royalty system for music needs to go. The industry's expectation of being paid for every "instance" of their intellectual property is unsustainable. Instead, musicians should be salaried, should make most of their income from actually performing concerts for people, and should release on CD only if they fully expect their music to be copied by others. Instead of concerts being a hook to get people to buy CDs, CDs should be a hook to get people to go to concerts. That would mean higher concert prices, but it would return some sanity to a currently insane system.
/ramble
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
They're no more making money from the background music than they are from the posters on the wall, or the carpet on the floor.
Does the Carpet Industry Association of America demand licensing fees because customers walk on the carpet, so the dentist is clearly making money off their carpet?
Of course not, because that would be assininely stupid.