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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?"
...is that somebody might actually get paid for elevator music.
Lets not forget the people with their car radio on and their windows rolled down. They are our number one priority man.
I sometimes play music loudly in my car with the windows down. I assume they'd be mad at me for that too.
If so, I'm very, very sorry. Don't worry, it's not the kind of crappy music that you're worried about people hearing for free anyway. This music is good.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
A couple of years later I ran a bar that had live music and we played CD's. We had to pay ASCAP and BMI nearly $3000 a year to cover CD's and the bands playing cover songs.
VANCOUVER - 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.
... don't even hear the music."
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, which collects royalties for musicians, has targeted dental offices in its latest campaign. The group is asking them to cough up a yearly fee if they use copyrighted music to entertain patients.
The fee, a minimum charge of $100, has enraged some dentists.
"I just feel it's a money grab," said Vancouver dentist Kerstin Conn, who recently received a letter from SOCAN at her office. "We paid for our CD and we're using it to listen to, and half the time my patients
Bruce Wilde, licensing manager for SOCAN, said people can listen to CDs for personal enjoyment but infringe copyright if they play them for other purposes.
"The distinction is that the music is not their property," he said. "And if it's being used in a public fashion or any kind of commercial fashion, then [musicians] deserve to be compensated for its use."
SOCAN has battled for years to get commercial and retail outlets to pay for the use of copyrighted music. Under legislation, the music played in coffee shops, clothing stores, lounges, elevators - even radio tunes that people hear on the telephone while on hold - is fair game.
The copyright laws do offer some wiggle room, one legal expert said. "The gray area, I think, is where it's overheard inadvertently," said Robert Howell, a professor at the University of Victoria Law School, "when it is really intended to be private but it is overheard inadvertently by a customer."
SOCAN said it has successfully collected the fees so far, but if someone refuses to pay, it could sue for copyright infringement. Things rarely go that far, the group said.
Conn said she intends to keep playing CDs in her Vancouver office - at least for now. "Well, no, I'm not going to turn off the music. It's wrong."
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How about just get music which is licensed in a more open fashon such as Creative Commons?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Considering how the courts have handled the music industry in the past, I somehow doubt they will actually let this happen in Canada.
Hi there
If they do something about the sound of the drill, I'm all for it.
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
You little dentist scum better sound off that you love the Canadian Music Industry, or I'm gonna stomp your guts out!
God has a hard on for dentists, because we kill everything we see. He plays his games, we play ours. To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven packed with fresh teeth. God was here before Dentistry, so you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the industry!
There's a bit of an interesting situation here... the publishers are trying to assert themselves into what presently is a very murky space in copyright land.
Using a broadcast radio station as the hold music on a phone system actually requires a copyright license from the station from which the artists/publishers should be seeking their payment. Of course, since it'd take a lot of work to observe all of the places this is going on, it's one of those bits of copyright law that more or less has been nullified by simple non-enforcement, and therefore slipped into that consumer-friendly category known as "fair use".
Case law has more or less said in the past that if a radio station is being pumped through an amplifier system throughout a building, then whomever is doing that needs to pay because they're redistributing the station. However, if they set up a standalone radio in every room and tune them all to the same frequency, they get the same effective sounds throught the building but don't have to pay because they're not redistributing, but just letting the boom boxes do their thing. But again, that often ends up unnoticed and unenforced.
Major sports venues have to pay for copyright licenses... but your local high school football venue likely uses the same music without paying for it.
Seems like this is an RIAA crackdown just waiting to happen...
Time for the dentists who haven't to switch over to using the radio. http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royal ties7.htm
The radio stations pay the royalties...
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
Perhaps the RIAA members will change their tune when they go for their dental checkups, and instead of soothing music, the dentists play recorded tracks of drilling and pulling teeth.
Since playing radio is still legal, would it be possible to design a 'smart radio' which searches and switches to another station if the music is no longer playing (i.e. with advertisement or DJ talking).
With such radio, dentists (or whoever) can preset a couple of like-taste stations and skip all the ads and talking, it'll be like a non-stop music album.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20020320
I know here in the US, if you play music on "non-commercial equipment" (IE A small boombox from Target, etc) or don't charge a fee, you don't have to pay the fees. But the minute you upgrade to pro equipment or make it pay-to-play, you do.
I found this out whilst doing research for opening a bar, a long term life goal I've had for quite some time.
Overall, even with the fee, it's not THAT much money - especially if you put in a jukebox. I know when I finally open up a place, I'll be more then happy to pay the money - at least until I do more research and find out the artists don't get a cent of it, then I'll be screaming hehe
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
but my dentist is probably the last person on earth I would want to piss off. Maybe the Canadian music execs are secretly dental masochists....
So if you have a radio plugged into your music on hold PBX port and the radio station already pays to play music, wouldn't that be "double dipping"? Isn't that illegal in Canada?
Whats funny is that the article states ""The distinction is that the music is not their property," he said. "And if it's being used in a public fashion or any kind of commercial fashion, then [musicians] deserve to be compensated for its use."
Considering the horrible track-record the recording industry has for paying musicians what is owed them, does anyone think that the musicians will see a dime if such monies are collected. What isn't mentioned is that this may make it illegal for DJ's to play at weddings and bar mitzvahs without paying some sort of fee. How many times do you have to pay for music before you can really enjoy it?
cluge
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Why should government be a debt collector for the music industry anyway? Why should the music industry get paid several times for one product?
I buy a CD, I'm buying the ability to use that disk, which means reproducing the sound of that music. I don't care what these assclowns say, but if I buy their music, I can play that music, weither I hear it or I and 500 people hear it.
This just shows how much this really isn't about lost profits or dwindling sales, but about control. They want control over the industry, which is going away. But the harder they squeeze, the harder we fall through their fist. Already another industry of alternative music is rising up, and if that kind of legislation goes down, they'll completly lose to the alternative industry who doesn't charge gobs of money for their music.
And since I'm up here, I might as well plug Tales from the afternow ( www.theafternow.com , free download on the site, 24 and 128kbps). If you listen to that, from beginning to end, you'll know how they're going to try to implement the control.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Every time I've gone to the dentist the radio has been playing. I've always thought that's the case with most dentists.
Since the Radio is already payed for by radio advertising (which the dentist is subjecting his customers to), this shouldn't really be a problem. And I'm sure if this is enforced, dentists who currently play CDs would just use the radio. I doubt any royalties would be made.
Are there any recordings of tranquil music so old that they are in the public domain? If so, play those, and tell The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada that the world's smallest violin is playing for them.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
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"?
The artist gets paid only if he/she was the songwriter. Performance royalties are paid for the song only, not for the recording (two seperate copyrights), so the record company doesn't see a dime either. The only people who get paid are the songwriter and the publisher (at worst a 50/50 split, if the songwriter runs his/her own publishing, and many do, the songwriter gets it all)
For a few years we stuck an old am/fm radio with a headphone jack plug into our phone system. It'd play the radio on the hold music.
Someone reported us / they figured out we'd been doing it and sued the employer. They 'offered' to settle if they were contracted to write up a commercial type thing. That was part of the legal 'settlement'. Complete gang rape RIAA style in the early 90s.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
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?
It's simple, they're anti-Dentites!
(Sorry, too much Seinfeld)
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I only know of one artist personally that gets ASCAP/BMI royalties. His opinion was that this stuff was indeed important to him. He wasn't a star by any means, playing mostly local gigs and had a small number of albums out on a minor label. He wasn't getting rich by being a musician, and considered these quarterly royalty checks an important part of his work as a musician.
"Oops, sorry, thought I'd given you the anesthetic....too late now, let me turn on some soothing music to take your mind off the pain....oh, wait, sorry, can't do that anymore"
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
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.
I once read that the Boy Scouts in the US have a list of copyrighted campfire songs they are forbidden from singing because ASCAP took them to court over it.
THAT is scraping the bottom of the litigious barrel. Seriously.
TOO MANY LAWYERS.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Yeah, I would *love* for my bands' music to forever be associated with dentist drilling and pain.
If you look at it that way, the music industry should be paying the dentists to not plays their music.
And let me tell you: You'd better get it right in one take. 'Cause like I say, it's a high-paying gig. If you can't hack it, there's a line of musicians out the door looking to take your seat.
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).
"We will also be attacking auto shops,
billing some breakfast nooks,
complaining about co-ops,
demanding at doctor's offices,
enjuncting eateries,
freaking out flyers,
grabbing from greenhouses,
holding up hotels,
infringing on rights at investment offices,
jostling Jeep dealers,
kneedling some knitting stores,
leavying against lawyers' offices,
meddling at muesems,
nosing around news stands,
offending offices,
prodding price-clubs,
questioning Quick Stops,
requesting of restrants,
shaking-down a few sugar shacks,
troubling travel agents,
unhinging uppolstry shop managers,
video-taping vacuum stores,
wringing out waterparks,
X-Raying Xerox service centers,
yelling at yogurt shops,
and zig zagging around zoos. "
Good thing nothing like this ever happens in the US. *sigh*
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
...if dentists are getting drilled by this, what's happening to proctologists?
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?
... depending on your point of view.
Wasn't there a story about some music publishing group in some country to make cab driver pay royalties if they played music in their cabs. In that instance, if memory serves, the group was claiming that the car was a commercial establishment so the cab driver was supposed to pay royalties. I'm sure somebody out there remembers a URL to that story. (I would be surprised if /. hadn't covered that one.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I'd hate to have to pay to play all those CDs I'm trying to sell on the record company's behalf...
ObBias: I'm married to a dentist.
Firstly, I won't deny there is some truth to your point, the pay for dentists is high. But there are a couple things you've forgotten.
1) Setting up as a dentist costs a _lot_ of money. At least $100k in training, and more than that for the practice. Sure, you might die rich, but I think it takes 15 years before you're better off than someone who leaves school for a job at McDs. Of course, you don't have to buy a practice, but pay rates for associates are quite a bit lower. I know we had a lot more disposable money now than we did a couple years ago, and I expect we'll have more in a few years.
2) Your argument is used by pretty much everybody to lump costs on dentists. Guess how much it costs for the piece of paper saying you can use the radiograph, a rubber-stamp with no checking that has to be renewed every? How much for the annual practicing certificate? How much for litigation insurance? How much for continuing eduation (some courses cost $1000/day). Roughly speaking, for every $100 you pay your dentist, they will get $15 cash they can spend.
Corrin (Pissed off because we bought an iPod yesterday for my wife to use at work)
Actually this sort of reminds me of this story about Finnish Taxi Drivers having to pay royalties.
2 34 &tid=141
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/03/216
I hate to burst your bubble, but it's quite likely no copyrighted material will enter the public domain again. Ever.
They wanted to lend me a discman, but since I had my own MP3 player with me, I used it instead.
I did notice that they had a cd holder full of CDRs though. But that's ok, since this is in Canada and we pay fees on blank CDRs for that, eh.
I used to have a dentist that would give you a tape player and let you select from a bunch of cassettes (this was pre-CDs). You could turn up the volume as loud as you wanted to drown out the drill.
I wonder if they'd sue for this. Technically, the dentist was letting me borrow his cassette to listen to it. I'd call that fair use.
Seems that a solution would be to let the patients "borrow" the CDs while they have work done.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
Just more Anti-Dentite propoganda for you.
God spoke to me
I was pretty shocked to say the least, but if you can believe it, even the 'on hold' music qualifies as "public entertainment" in the view of these idiots. Where most businesses used to be able to just tune a radio and plug that into the telephone, that practice has now effectively been outlawed. In fact, he's never played CDs in his office - he's only used the radio (nevermind that the stations have already paid the 'public entertainment' tax), and that appears to be a no-no as well.
The unfortunate solution to this whole mess was to:
stop playing ANY music in the office
replace the 'on hold' radio with a paid-for recording which has royalty-free music in the background
In the end, SOCAN didn't get much money from him, I don't think, because the royalty-free music was composed in-house in the firm that recorded his fancy new telephone greeting for waiting callers. But the whole idea riled him up so much I think they've lost the whole family in customers when it comes to buying music in the future. Go figure.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
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.
Yes, they are a commercial establishment but that music is for the enjoyment of both guests and staff and it is not being sold as part of the service nor is it a true "performance". Even so, many establishments subscribe to digital music services sold specifically to businesses to provide ambiance. Simply put, it is bought and paid for already.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Are any composers and authors actually in favour of this, or just the publishers?
I asked my wife, a musician, the above question. She replied with "No, that's stupid!" In addition to thinking it was stupid, she also seemed to feel that it was more important the people heard her music than that she was paid for every time it was played.
After asking her about the 'other sides' opinion that the artists need to get paid fairly for their work, she reminded me that even though she is a musician, she won't ever receive the royalties. In her case, she plays with an orchestra. This means that it is not her that is the artist, but the orchestra. And it is not her that can complain, but rather the orchestra director and (possibly) the conductor. But more likely the recording label, not the actual orchestra.
So, OK. The orchestra gets paid. That means that she gets more money because the royalties trickle down in her paychecks. Wrong. She is paid a fixed salary, independent of how much revenue the orchestra makes.
OK, so she isn't exactly a rock star, nor does she make millions with her music, but she is still a recording artist and the law does not benefit her, nor will it ever.
Here are some of the other tariffs charged by SOCAN.
Strolling Musicians and Buskers; Recorded Music - Fee per day: $32.55 for each day on which music is performed
Skating Rinks (Roller & Ice Skating) - 1.2% of gross receipts from admissions exclusive of sales and amusement taxes
Comedy Shows and Magic Shows - Fee per show: $36.60 where use of music is incidental.
Aircraft - Fee per quarter, based on seating capacity:
a) Take-off and landing music - ranging from $40.50 to $82.50 per aircraft
b) In-flight music - ranging from $162.00 to $330.00 per aircraft
Telephone Music on Hold - Fee for one trunk line: $94.51, plus $2.09 for each additional trunk line.
Background Music - Annual fee: $1.23 per square metre or 11.46 per square foot; half the annual rate for establishments operating less than six months per year. (In all cases, minimum fee of $94.51)
In this line of thinking the recording industry had better be careful about targetting the urologists... talk about the potential for backfiring!
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
In order to make it palatable, the dentists need a publicist to headline a few high-profile cases where poor dentists are shown losing everything because nobody is buying new dental work anymore. Picture it: a few talking heads discussing how this will eventually devastate the economy, how billions will leave the country to futher line the pockets of foriegn magnates. Forclosures, bad credit card debt, dentists leaving the industry for better prospects in other industries..how the brain-drain is sapping innovation, how the masses are now beginning to suffer from a death of dental professionals...
They should then push for important new legislation to stop all gray-market dental work from being done: The Dental Millenium Universal Hygiene Act. Of course the name has been chosen to impicitly ironic, suggesting that the welfare of the commoner is being looked after.
Oh great, I have to run. The company that makes the turbofan cooling my video card proccessor chip is here with a subpoena demanding I pay for the traquil whir i've been listening to all this time, or else.
The problem a lot of these establishments have right now is that they feel that they have to play current, hit music. If anything, some music only appeals to certain demographics. I don't want to hear Eminem while having my teeth cleaned or furniture shopping. Play classical music pieces like Mozart or other things that are in the public domain. Last I checked, some of this music is $2.00 a CD in the store!
... so will everyone else .... the gov't .... that's right taxpayers.
The other problem is that the RIAA hasn't tried to sue the US gov't. I would love to see them try and sue the Pentagon, DOJ or the Whitehouse for playing tunes to guests or workers. Big political no,no that you'll never see. But then again, when everyone else pays
This is old, but it still applies... In fact, perhaps now, more than ever.
The End of the Internet
http://mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=494
(Some time in the near future)
I finally found a way to make money off the Internet. I did it by writing a book about how the Net died.
Not that I made any money while it existed, you see. No one did.
Oh, like everyone else, I loved the Internet for all the freedom it gave me, and the wealth of information and idea exchange, where everyone profited from that free flow of thought and information. But, you know how Man is. Never underestimate his ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
Why did it end? Simple: It was greed.
First it started with the Spammers. There got to be so much Spam, that even Congressmen were snowed under with the daily deluge. No one could get their legitimate mail because of the thousands of fake letters these inventive Spammers were sending out with their Web bots. Congress finally made a law strong enough that any of them could be shot on sight. Some hacker then posted on the Web a public list of the lot of them, and soon they were all dead.
The public, long laboring under all that Spam, liked what they did so much, that they killed off all the hackers too. This had a profound effect on people taking computer science and engineering classes, did you know that?
That was the first nail in the coffin of the Net. We should have all paid attention to it. But no one did. We were all too busy trying to make a buck off of the Net.
The next coffin nail came when the Music and Movie companies finally paid Congress enough money to have the copyright laws changed. It was easy once Disney got them to extend copyright privileges another hundred years. The new law that Congress passed was very comprehensive! In fact, no one could listen to the music without breaking the new laws!
Now it was a Federal offense to even read or see anything that was copyrighted. If you did, there would be an unauthorized copy in your brain that you could access just by remembering. Oh, you could legitimately purchase a copy of anything copyrighted in the stores, but you could never open that copy and view it or listen to it. Tough law!
That's why all the libraries in the country were permanently closed. Right after that the schools and colleges were all shut down, and their teachers and administrators put away for using copyrighted materials in their classrooms. Students, however, were forgiven their offense in this, but all their books and notes were confiscated and burned.
The next nail came with the legal view of computer hardware. That legal POV stated that the desktop, palmtop, or laptop computer you were using could also hold, however briefly, yet another copy of any copyrighted material you might put into it, for transfer to a CD, or perhaps downloaded off the Web. Congress just attached this to their Anti-Terrorism Bill for Secure Systems Standards. Remember, these devices were considered guilty until proven innocent, just as their owners were. It seems the very existence of these machines was now suspect, because someone, somewhere, might use them for pirating copyrighted material!
Therefore all these computing devices became illegal to even own. No more Computers!
The music companies, having now gotten their way with Congress, finally had a law written that was so powerful, even they were locked up! They were all sent to prison for having a copy of their own music, which they had bought (or rather stolen) from the artists. Just deserts!
Then the movie producers and the owners of movie theaters were locked up for the same violation of this powerful new copyright law! They were sent away for distributing more than one copy of their movies.
Then the music artists and singers were all locked away for the same reason. Worse, for under the new law, many were sent up the river for playing their own songs too many time
yup, in Australia people are expected to pay to put customers on hold. The Australian music monopolists have decided that even a phone call deserves a usage tax.
-AD
Magazines? Some organization could form to 'protect' the copyright holders like Time or People or whoever, against doctors offices and other waiting rooms for having their copyrighted printed materials available for public viewing. I'm sure there are others... Oooh. The video stores at the mall that sell movie DVD's and have the movies playing from start to finish on the TV's!
Who else shall pay the price for common sense???
I had a sucky sig.
They can play classical music or maybe some old jazz tunes from 80 years back?
Although the music itself may be in the public domain, most performances of it would not be. Perhaps some conservatory students could start putting out free performances?
Outsource Music!
I'm sure we could get music cheaper if we outsourced the creation to a country like India. I mean, sure there's a bit of a language and culture gap to cross, but the lower cost of creation is surely worth some retraining.
I'll feel more sympathetic when someone tells me how I can make a living by creating what I want to create, instead of having to work for someone else. I don't really see that happening though.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
My Dentist (big hairy jewish guy) and his really hot hygenists (this is why I deliberately give myself cavities) sing showtunes to me while they do their thing. Its wonderful...
The reason dentists give patients music to listen to is so that the patients are more relaxed, which contributes to a better overall image of the practice, as well as reducing the number and duration of time wasting events such as panic attacks. In short, by using the music, the practice is more successful.
The same argument applies to malls. The proprietors play music that enhances the mood of the listener in a way that benefits the mall's tenants (sales), which means a steadier tenant roster (successful tenants) and continuing lease payments. Music is not a small part of the strategy that goes into making a mall a pleasurable place to shop.
If copyrighted material is used by a business to improve its success, then royalties are in order, just as if it was used in an advertisement on TV.
How could the parent be modded troll? His "Full Metal Jacket" reference (or is that a standard Marine Corps statement?) is absolutely brilliant and should be rewarded with +1 Funnies and +1 underrateds. As for me, I'm prepared to be modded down mercilessly to fight for what I feel is right, so let it begin.
"Wait a second, no one does that."
Three letter counter argument: NPR. Radio financed by tax dollars, not ad revenues. Funny thing, they play classical and jazz music that isn't copyrighted and there's not a huge payola scheme to play.
As for listening before you buy, why is that an unreasonable expecation? If I wish to buy art, I can go to a gallery and for free or at most a small fee to the gallery (not the artist) go and look at works I might like to own. I pay for the work when I want a copy of it, not for looking. Most I can even see on the Internet. I see the whole "no free previews" argument as going like this if applied to paintings:
Sycraft: "I saw a painting by artist X that looks interesting. I think I'd like something similar by him, if he does the same sort of work."
Art Guy: "Ahh yes, all of X's work is desert scenes like the painting you mention, we have many I'm sure you'd like, would you like to purchase one?"
Sycraft: "Probably, let me see some of his other work. I'm not after the one I've seen, but something like it."
Art Guy: "I'm sorry, but you need to buy one to see it."
Sycraft: "?"
Art Guy: "It's simple, you need to pay to see the painting. I mean X worked hard to create it, you can't expect to get something for free, now can you?"
Sycraft: "Look, I don't want a free print, but I need to SEE the print before I commit to buying it."
Art Guy: "But you've already seen one of his paintings and you know you like that."
Sycraft: "No I said I was interested, I don't want that one. If he has something like it, but different, maybe, but that one isn't the others."
Art Guy: "Well sorry, you have to buy it to see it."
That seems to be the philsophy. They play the one song on the radio they want you to hear, and you are expected to decide if you want the album based on it. Er, no. I want to hear more of the album to decide if I want the album. I shouldn't have to pay to hear it before I buy it. I was allowed to test my car before I bought it, I toured my house before I bought it, I looked at all my art before I bought it, why can't I hear the music before I buy it?
One solution would be to get your music from Magnatune.
http://magnatune.com
All Magnatune music is licensed under the Creative Commons license with terms of Attribution, NonCommercial, and ShareAlike.
http://magnatune.com/info/openmusic
I just studied the "Licensing" page, and I think that playing music for your customers is a "commercial" use and you would need a commercial license from Magnatune. But they offer their whole catalog for commercial use, and if you license from them, you know that 50% of whatever you pay goes straight to the artist.
I'm not sure how much they would charge for a dentist to play music for customers, but the "Public Space" license (e.g. for playing music in the dining room of a restaurant) is $45 per year for one album.
P.S. I'm a happy customer of Magnatune; I admire what they are doing and I hope they succeed. I have no other ties of any sort to them.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Actually, the Radio stations already pay a royalty to the artists when they play songs. The easy way around it for them is just to stick on the radio. Speaking of on-hold music, I did once get a cheque for A$200 for on hold royalties and it came at a time when I was so broke, I couldn't even afford to feed my cat let alone myself. It got me and my cat through the week. For struggling, up and coming musicians, the airplay royalty is a good thing.
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This is allready practiced in Norway. Taxis, coffee bars, shops, the lot. Everyone has to pay royalties to TONO. It sucks ass. They even has to pay for listening to the radio, even though the radios allready pay for playing music. And btw, I'm an artist. Not anything big at all, but still.
...Remembering music in your memories and listnening to it? If music industry only could force you to forget, or to detect that you are at the moment "listening" inside... they would squeze money out of you.
...) from producers, with agreement that producers won't cut their buyers' (brokers') prices by selling bellow them, or even that they would not make another sell at all, for some fixed, agreed upon, period. That clause is, of course, voluntary and seller's fail to comply, treachery, would hurt seller's bussiness credibility and future prices hard (I am sure that, in case of traceability of trust breach, there could even be a court case).
I suggest people who are sick and tired of this make organised "silent listening" parties in protest of stupid note counting: Get together, mention the title, no, title could be a trademark, run a chain of asociations to the part, untill everybody say "I got it" (don't bring clueless friends with you), then someone makes the "start" gesture (whatever it may be) and everybody "listen to the music together" (some very sync people could even dance to it) in ridicule of conduct of music industry and demonstration of the fact that hearing music once is owning it forever.
Where this heads, soon you would be required to use headphones (with real head detection) to stop accidental leaking of their music to someone who did not pay. Loudspeakers would be illegal, unless all precautions are met to keep all the sound inside the room, and everyone in the room payed the playprice. (Not so bad after all... then none would bug you with loud music any more or they would be sued by RIAA for unauthorised handing out of their property).
The point is that information can only be sold the way secrets are sold (remember, by definition something is information for you only if you haven't already knew it). That goes for all new (software, video) and old (written stuff, music, even patents) flavours of information. Any other attempt to price and deal it in material kind of way is like trying to hold the water in the basket, plow the sea, or heard the snails.
Information is precious and should be priced very high accordingly, but any attempt to steer it afterwards is pointless, doomed, expensive, troublesome and, as most of us feel, tiranic. Get your money now and keep your nose out of my business! The problem they (information producers and dealers) have with this natural state of affairs is twofold: 1) they wish to sell directly to great number of people who hasn't got that kind of money, but as there are so many of us, 'en masse' ('the market') we have huge amount of it (and they think they shold get all of it and more) and 2) they are huge machinery wich pays its own record manufacturing. The solution is so obvious and natural but, hidden behind the long rooted law system, information industry doesn't want to change and subsidize itself:
First, the information carrier imprinting (record production) industry should be separated from information producing industry.
Second, there should be information exchange market, like there is stock exchange market. The information brokers would buy brand new (and expensive!) information (music, software, films,
Of course, the buyers will have to be very cautios who they get into business with. Maybe some of their co-buyers can make fast sell into their target market and close them out (think "first newspaper to publish the news"). But, going large scale may be too expensive. New owners of information can choose to sell several copies to other interested parties, at more affordable (medium or small businesses affordable) price covering their expenses plus profit in sum.
At some pont, record producing industry will buy the information and publish it at very affordable price (i.e. like Linux or BSD distros of today), but of course they will compete and try to get it sooner then competition do. Still, somewhere, very soon, you will be able to get it for smaller price, home
There are plenty of out-of-copyright recordings of classical music (and not only that but you can buy them on CD, too - though I'm not sure if the touching up and remastering creates any new IP). Many of them are excellent performances, too. You can, for example, listen to Rachmaninov playing his own musing in recordings from before 1920 through to the 1940s. Some of them are a bit scratchy, though, and most are in mono.
Actually, it's not uncommon for reviewers to rate some of these old recordings above more recent recording.
RIAA: I 'ork 'hor 'theee 'aarr'eeeaaaay
Dentist: What?
RIAA: *spit* the RIAA, you know...
Dentist: hmmmm....
*zzzzzzzzzzzzgrrrrrrriiiilllzzzdddmmmmmmmmmm*
Subsonic drill noises
Sounds of delicate enamel being drilled
*Blood curdling scream of agony*
Oh yes, you have chosen to piss off all the wrong people now, you overpaid music execs... next time you feel the drill penetrate your sensitive nerves, or you get stuck in the lift listening to Avril Latrine... you will know...
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Tell SOCAN to snarf off. An Expressvu commercial account will run $593.64/year for minimal (46.97/mo includes all fees, but not taxes.) programming that includes the Galaxy stations. (variety of music) (you have to take some TV programming now according to the CRTC, which seems kind of silly) Cost of equipment is minimal, installation isn't that expensive (no freebie specials for commercial establishments unfortunately) and.. it is a tax writeoff. Hmmm, I wonder how they would proceed in court over someone just having the radio going? It is free off the air, just like someone having a bar and putting a TV in with a plain old antenna doesn't have to pay.
Most conservatory students I know would prefer to get paid for what they do : it's indeed a very difficult job and they cannot afford to give their work away.
Last year, we interepreted Mozart's Krönungsmasse with some students and they categorically refused to have their work uploaded and available for free.
If you want somebody to give away free music, you'd better ask somebody who has a name, time and money.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
As a dentist and a human being, this really pisses me off. This is a perfect example of overextended greed and misplaced blame. Don't they understand that they're harassing some of the very people who actually PAY for their music? The only solution to this sort of nonsense is for someone to allow themselves to get taken to court. If you could then manage to generate enough negative publicity they would be forced to drop the whole thing. I'd love to see a website with pictures of SOCAN execs, publicly humilitating them personally for being greedy bastards.
j sp
There was a similar flap about 10 or 15 years ago where BMI was shaking down bar and club owners that had live bands covering copyrighted music. I could almost understand it since they were making money by offering the music as entertainment but threatening to sue dentists is ridiculous.
TELL THEM HOW YOU FEEL:
http://www.socan.ca/jsp/en/contact_us/email_us.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
About 1 1/2 years ago, a company (not sure which one) was sending people to different (small) business's in Minneapolis Minnesota. Most of the businesses were non chain coffee shops, cafes, and restaurants. They basically said that they would be fined if they were playing music if they did not have a subscription to digital radio. Just about every place I used to go to had to switch, because no one wanted to get fined., or fight to defend their rights to play music in their location. Some people did try doing different things, like playing music off music channels on cable, but for the most part, no more local bands, no more local music, nothing but mainstream music off digital subscription. It will happen in your city soon if it hasn't happened yet, it worked so well in Minneapolis, im sure they will force everyone onto it.
TruePunk | Games
Yes, but that is true of a number of things, like the colour they paint their walls. You only have to pay for the paint once, when you buy it. It's not like the dentists aren't paying for the music -- they do buy the CDs in the first place.
What's missing here is the intent of copyright law. Any time anybody plays music without headphones they are broadcasting it, but that's not the intent. The intent of the broadcast rights is when the music itself is the commercial attraction, i.e., people listen to radios or go to clubs to hear the music. People don't go to dentists to listen to music. I think this clearly falls into fair use, but I am neither a lawyer nor judge unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view).
this moment of silence brought to you by the Canadian Music Industry
If you were an artist and some store was playing your CD over and over wouldn't you want to be recompensed in some way?
Ok...lets say you are that artist. Did the store in question pay for your CD when they bought it? Yes? Then STFU...you got paid. Now you just want to be paid again for someone adverising your CD in their establishment. Funny...I would have thought free advertising would be welcomed by artists. It's not as if they are burning copies in the back and handing them out to everyone. They are simply playing it. YOU should probably pay the store owner for playing your CD in their store. Because it's not like you are the only one with a CD out, and I'm sure someone would appreciate the free advertising...
So wouldn't you think music publishers would be happy that the licensed stations are playing in stores where a lot of people walk in and out?
The catch is, publishers don't make a dime more if the radio is blaring through every possible radio within broadcast range than they do if the deejay's mom is the only human listening. The local advertisers pay the radio station--not the publishers--for airtime. In fact, the publishers are probably NOT happy about it, since they are less likely to sell a record that you already feel like you hear everywhere you go.
The fee for playing a radio broadcast in your business is paid to the radio station as well, just like a bar that has televisions tuned to a football game or pay-per-view boxing match. The original broadcast is meant for private viewing, that's why they read the copyright notice somewhere during every NFL game. It can easily be argued that the advertising is now reaching more potential customers, but the broadcast is being used by a third party business to draw more money into the bar. If a bar owner makes $50 extra with the radio, I see no problem with giving the station $5.
To tangent a bit more, Lars Ulrich was right when he said radio isn't free. I saw him at a press conference during the entire Napster thing (I think he's an ass and Metallica handled it very poorly) where someone asked a question that ended in "...but radio is free?" He disagreed, but the footage I saw cut before he gave his explanation. Radio is free only from the perspective that you don't pay the radio station money. To use an old pun in a serious context, you pay attention. That was the only thing I heard him say that made any sense. And I'm a musician too. It's a good thing this is three days old, because Napster is still good for spawning a huge debate.
I heard a statement regarding TV once that really clicked, and it applies to broadcast radio as well:
Television doesn't exist to bring programs to the viewer; it exists to bring client base to the advertisers.
It's truer than we want to admit. Music isn't free when you get it over the airwaves, because you listen to all the crap in between.
You're right about the music industry corporate greed tho.
Mom says my