Slashdot Mirror
BBC In Trouble Over Free Music
Take a Byte Out of Crime writes "According to this article, British classical labels are claiming that the BBC giving away the these symphonies, which were performed by the BBC Orchestra for free, constitutes unfair government competition. Apparently all free music really is illegal these days, or soon will be, public domain be damned."
Time to get the Ouija board out and see what Beethoven has to say about all of this. He says...
"First post!"
Hmmmm...
That no good deed goes unpunished.
is that corporations will sue private citizens giving things away for free, claiming "unfair competition by [those people who damn well should be] the buying public."
Corporations = have rights.
Anyone/thing else = "with the terrorists."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
From the article: "There is the obvious issue that it is devaluing the perceived value of music. You are also leading the public to think that it is fine to download and own these files for nothing."
Gee, maybe I'm wrong, but aren't Beethoven's symphonies public domain? How dare the BBC introduce a great composer's copyright-free works to a larger audience! They're devaluing it! And by "devaluing the music", you mean "devaluing your stock value", right?
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
Is it for the protection of the original ideas?
Or the protection of individual performances?
===
Can you play only public domain songs, sell it, and then have people trading your performances withouit purchasing them be pirates?
Does anyone know?
[I legitemately don't but would like to]
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
The complaint that this is unfair strikes me as being very nearly as absurd as the situation in the US where there are private companies complaining that only they should be allowed to have the data collected and generated by the taxpayer-funded National Weather Service, and that taxpayers should not be able to get the data directly from the government.
If these are the same ones I downloaded, they spent a few minutes chatting before they started the music. Not quite as bad as ads, but still, nothing that would cause folks who just played music anything to worry about.
Too bad - but made me take the time to rip a couple CD's for my MP3 player.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Claim prior art. You know, by Beethoven/Mozart/Bach/whoever.
Prior art applies to patent law, not anti-competitive behaviour. Similarily, parody applies to copyright works, and not anti-competitive behaviour.
At first I thought this was ridiculous because music isn't a commodity, it's not like the government is selling the same thing as the music companies. But when I thought about it some more, in ways, most classical music is a commodity. I mean, when you're looking for Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2, for the most part people don't care about who plays it, the just care that it's a recording of the piece they're looking for. That said, it's not entirely commoditized, I mean, there are differences between recordings, there are different arrangements, different qualities of recording, etc.
It seems very odd though that record companies dealing in classic music would be of the opinion that classical recordings are commodities or that even if they weren't of that opinion, that they would encourage people to think of it that way. It just seems like bad business.
If you not good enough to compete with the public domain, then it's time to rethink your career.
Is there any intrinsic difference between making the performances available for download and broadcasting the performances on digital radio.
If you have the right equipment (such as a Psion Wavefinder) and a reliable signal (not so easy for digital) you can record all the Proms at MP3 equivalent quality.
The difference is the governments aren't funding those people! Oh wait, Governments around the world routinely do things like that. In fact local governments often put a lot of money into funding symphonies etc.--without that funding the "Classical Labels" who are complaining in this case would have a much crappier talent pool to pick from. This same issue came up when some town was releasing its GIS data a while back... I don't see how it is even an issue if it has already been paid for (as with that data and these performances).
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
that the BBC isn't really run by the government. It's an independent Crown corporation like the CBC in Canada.
I don't understand how giving something away for free could be seen as competition. It's not like you can buy the exact same thing from a someone else. On the other hand, if this was something like Mozart/Bach/any|other|classic|artist where no one owns a copyright, then I guess giving it away while someone was selling it could be seen as an unfair buisness practice.
I still take the side of BBC on this one, though. They recorded the music with their own in-house orchestra and therefore should be able to distribute it any way they like. Period.
Software is like sex. It's better when it's free. -Linus Torvalds
Just more insight into why the recorded music industry is dieing.
I subscribed to BBC music magazine for quite some time - just for the music. Three bucks a month and it came with a CD attached to every cover. This isn't the first time the classical music fuzzheads have shown their cluelessness - when Sarah Brightman first started gaining popularity many decried how she was "corrupting the form." And when classical compilation CDs produced by small publishers (usually recordings of performances by east euro orchestras) many of these dying purists attacked them - again - for "diluting the value of these works."
This really is pretty standard fare for those old school classical publishers. It's not about copyright, it's about fox hunts and cardboard people and preserving their "high end" market image.
First of all the music industry is consipiring to strangle the very human instinct of music. It is in us, and we are genetically programmed to appreciate it.
The reason this industry is fighting so hard is greed. Pure and simple greed.
They have a way of life/business model that can't addapt to the quickly changing digital world around them so like vultures they are clawing at their food supply.. namely your dollars.
So whats to do? Namely the copyright holders of each song/piece of music ulitmately control if it is placed in the public domain. Currently most are being greedy.. or are just clueless.
Its pyrimid ponzi scheme of artistic and corporate collusion, and its only getting worse.
They are the music nazis, and if you want it you must join their party and play their game.
We need to continue to encourage folks to step up to the plate. Bands, artists, songwriters of all flavors should make thier stuff availible online with one CC stipulation.. It can't be sold/profitted from unless the copyright holder changes the license.
Most of the stuff from the big labels is corporate shit anyway.. the only reason folks buy it is they are told its cool.
So those of who do make music cause you frelling love it, and not because you want a damn easy check fight on.
Live it, love it, make it real.
Even if you suck its better than canned spam coming out yer radio.
Peace, D
Not only the music industry, even the UK newspaper's are facing tough competition from the BBC's news website.
The interesting thing about this is that the UK newspapers are being forced to support their competition through taxes.
They're forced to pay the government to dig their own economic graves.
or could it be because they haven't got a leg to stand on and the BBC is perfectly within it's rights to have done this... having copyright anyway in the performance that they did, and therefore, they could dispose of it exactly as they wished, including making it available for free download so nya... nya...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I'm sure many of us understand how the BBC works, it's funded in majority by the license fee we Brits have to pay per household every year. I think I paid 130UKP last year (220USD).
The argument about value for money is a can of worms I'm not going to touch, however, it smacks a little bit of unfairness if my US based cousins can enjoy what is arguably the best part of the BBC (BBC Online) without having to contribute a penny.
BBC Online should be protected in-line with the rest of the BBC, the content should be un-lockable via entry of my license number.
The same goes for the recent deal done to broadcast Radio 1 on Sirrius. Presumably the profit goes back in to creating the BBC, however, I'd prefer it to go back in to my already stretched pocket.
In NAFTA countries, this kind of lawsuit would actually be successful, and the Government would be liable for all potential losses. In the US/Canada it's very common for Corporations to sue States/Provinces - surprisingly Canadians sue American states more than the other way around.
Quoth that source:
... so which one takes precedence?
WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?
Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)
===
Technically those symphonies DO have original authorship but are now public domain, correct?
Is that original authorship a registered copyright, or is that just that it was created by a human and would have been protected by copyright (if they had applied)?
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
that might work if they had something obvious that made it a parody before they were "In Trouble Over Free Music".
anyways, they (BBC) are giving stuff away for free that was performed by the BBC Orchestra. if it was someone else's product being discounted by the govt then it would constitute unfair government competition (imho).
and what does the "claim" mean? that if anything in any form ever had a cost, no one can ever give it for free? or just not the government? in either case, that's just sad (and VERY VERY stupid).
A French bus company sues cleaning ladies who carpool.
Guardian article here.
What is up with Europe these days? We were glad when they rejected software patents, but these sorts of legal actions? They make the US look like a country where nobody ever sues anyone without reason ever....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
British Classical music IS parody
*ducks*
There is truth in humor.
Since the BBC (radio and TV) broadcast their programming for free and without advertising, all their works, past and present, constitute "unfair government competition."
Nevermind that they are essentially the vanguards of British culture the world over. That's not important at all.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
So if you compose a song, it is protected under copyright. People cannot go and repreform that song without giving you royalties. Now in the US, reperformances, called covers, have statutory royalties, so the copyright holder doesn't have much say in it, but you still have to pay them.
However the performance is seperate, and also copyrighted. While osmeone can do a cover of your song, they can't just copy your performance without permissions.
This also means that though a given song may be public domain, a particular performance isn't. So all Motzart's works are public domain, you can post the sheet music on the net freely, without fear. However a specific performance of that music may be copyrighted. You can, of course do your own performance, or comission to be done, but you can't just (legally) copy their performance.
Both are seen as creative works. It is a creative work to create a song, but it is also a creative work to play that song. The musicians have a lot to do with the rendition of it, espically with classical music and I can say as a former classical musician, it's not easy.
Now in this case, you are allowed to trade the specific performance freely as well. The orignal songs are of course long out of copyright, and the BBC has chosen to give their work in to the public domain, which is their right.
The challenge is from greedy labels, not over copyright, but over unfair competition. They claim it's unfair that the BBC, which is taxpayer funded, is giving away works that compete with ones they sell. However the status of the copyright isn't being challenged. The BBC Orchestra performed it, and the BBC chose to relinquish the performance to public domain, that's a done deal.
to get your free http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/ classical music.
Lawsuits of this type aren't always without merit. The idea is that in a capatalism, the government isn't allowed to unfairly compete with private corperations. I mean the government can basically always win out in a price war if they want since they can cover costs through taxes, which people don't count in the price since they aren't a direct charge. Since in a capatalism it is undesirable to have the government run everything (wouldn't be a capatalism if they did) it is generally illegal for them to unfairly compete with the private sector.
Now I see this as very differnet. The government isn't competing, they are doing a public service. They aren't trying to have CDs put in stores next to other classical works but for a lower price, they are just releasing some electronic music to the masses. Private entities aren't precluded form competing, they can produce different/better versions of these symphonies (like a DVD-A or DTS CD or something). This is just record companies being whiny.
Personally I say distribute more classical music, or shut the fuck up. It's truly pathetic the selection of classical available. Record labels don't like it very much since it's fairly expensive to produce (an orchestra has a lot of musicians, all who need to be paid, usually up front) and it doesn't sell nearly as much as pop music.
Laughing aside the argument that giving away something provides a justification(1) for stealing, lawyers could argue the following:
So, is this like when Microsoft first gave away Internet Explorer, in an attempt to shut down Netscape, which ultimately succeeded. What happened to them? Well, the Justice department decided that Microsoft was a monopoly and was unfairly using its monopoly powers. In the end, in spite of being found guilty, no punishment was enacted and the give away of Internet Explorer continues to this day.
This argues that BBC should be allowed to give away music.
Your opponent might then argue that BBC is a government entity and that private music producers have to compete against an entity giving away product subsidized by taxpayers money.
You could then counter and compare it against the situation where a government gives away medicine in an attempt to wipe out a disease affecting its citizens. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know of any cases where giving away medicine in such circumstances has been prohibited. There are even case of patent violations where countries have copied drugs (I seem to remember this has occured in South Africa and Brazil) in order to reduce the cost.
In this case you might argue that the drug is music and the disease is modern culture.. but let's not start up that old argument.
In any case, this also argues that BBC should be allowed to give away music.
-----
(1) Think about the free product samples you see in stores occasionally. Do you think that this makes people believe that they can take home large packages of the same product being offered for sale without paying?
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
I fear we are beginning to see the problems of diseases on capitalism really rearing their heads these days. The greed recently is overwhelming! Perhaps it is because most Western nations have lost their tangible manufacturing base to countries like India, Taiwan and China. Now instead of manufacturing goods, all that Western companies can do is manufacture "intellectual property". Since such "property", be it movies or music, isn't tangible in any way, it is often quite easy to reproduce and distribute. As such, these corporations and groups must resort to legalities to make a living.
Indeed, what we are seeing is a disease on capitalism and the free market. Our capitalism has been infected with intangible goods that are being treated as if they were tangible by the forces of law. The free market is not being allowed to work, and trouble is the result. Indeed, one cannot have an effective capitalistic society without a free market. Our free market has become diseased with intellectual property legalities, and as such fails to work to the benefit of society.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
"The Stupidest Lawsuit since the World Began"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I sure am glad the Berman Hack-Back bill went down to defeat, because I downloaded all of the symphonies. Wouldn't want someone from the RIAA going into my network because they think I'm taking bread from the mouths of RCA Red Seal, Deutsche Grammaphon, or whatever classical label you'd care to name...
I mean, really...the Beeb does this to get people interested in Classical music. They certainly succeed, too...when this first appeared in Slashdot downloading was impossible for the next 48 hours after the article appeared. It was only thanks to archive.org and a few other sites that I was able to glom onto the whole set.
You can bet there won't be a "repeat performance" of something like this from the Beeb. Thanks a lot, pigopolists...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Except that all British Citizens have paid for this music whether they chose to or not. That would be the same as if the government charged everyone $15,000 and then gave everyone a "free" car. It's not exactly fair to the competition.
These recordings are most emphatically not public domain. I've seen several posts, at +4 and +5, claiming they are.
The BBC made these recordings available for personal, non-commercial use. You're not even allowed to give them to your friends, by the letter of the law and the downloading terms. If you missed out when they were available from the BBC website, too bad; you're not legally allowed to get them anywhere else, so you're SOL.
If they were public domain, then you could do whatever you wanted with them. Copy them, sample them, sell them, you name it, they'd be fair game. They aren't, so you can't. Period.
As for the record execs complaining: I can understand where they're coming from; after all, a full symphonic orchestra is not a cheap thing to have. You're talking about over 80 professional musicians here. I don't know if they'd be employed full time or not, but also consider the venue hire for rehearsals, recordings, etc. -- a studio that can fit a full orchestra is a hell of a lot larger than one that can fit a typical rock and roll band. The BBC, however, pays for all these through the British tax payer, not through (or at least, not solely through) sales of their products.
Having said that, I do believe that the execs are misguided. Making Beethoven's symphonies available for legal, free download can be considered the hook to get people listening to more classical music who would otherwise not even consider it. It's not a cake of a fixed size; this is an attempt to grow the cake, which the recording execs will benefit from in the long term. Maybe not in sales of Beethoven's symphonies, but likely in other works. There's a lot of classical music out there.
Basically here is how it works in this case:
The score is public domain, the performance is not, thus:
should you desire you could re-construct the score from the performance and re-perform it yourself and be in the clear. You can not, however, distribute a copy of the performance without the performance owners permission (which has been granted de facto by its posting on the web by the performance owner).
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Naxos issue low cost CDs of classical recordings. Three months ago they lost a court case brought by the Capitol label.
The french... a bus company is suing some commuters for car. pooling.
The world is badly, badly b0rken.
err!
jak.
Making food for useful people since 1972.
There is no private copyright here. The BBC is a unit of the British Government, and its musicians are thus Government employees. There's "crown copyright", but that's limited to certain types of materials.
In the US, you can download many performances by the United States Marine Band. There can be no copyright on those performances. Works by the U.S. Government are not subject to copyright protection Free, legal MP3 here!
If the RIAA doesn't like that, tough.
.. wives and girlfriends for unfair competition
And, as for tough competition, last time I looked The Guardian, a small circulation not for profit UK newspaper, had a website which has more page views than most of the rest of the UK newspaper industry put together, and competes with the BBC given far less resources. The truth is, Murdoch, Rothermere and Sullivan between them have reduced the UK newspaper industry to such low grade sensationalist crap that they cannot compete with anybody who does a half decent job, at least where the audience who can read and write are concerned.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
- we still use Sterling, not Dollars or Euros
- the money is collected through a licence fee, not a direct tax,
- our elected representatives have no direct say in BBC funding because it works under a Royal Charter, this keeps it independent of the government, and thus, free to report the government's business without bias.
The BBC has kindly summarised it's next 10 years here.boakes.org
You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.
You read it wrong: What you should concentrate on is "except for your own personal, non-commercial use." That dilutes all that was said before, limiting the ban for other uses, like you couldn't take a clip and use it in your radio commercial background promoting your products.
So read it as "you may do to this piece of music anything you like to do as long as it's for your personal use."
?SYNTAX ERROR
No.
1) the score is in the public domain (Mozart died centuries ago!), anyone can perform it
2) anyone who does perform it (or depending on the exact details of the agreement, commissions such a performance) owns the rights to that performance
3) the BBC commissioned such a performance, and owns the rights to it
4) it is this performance that the BBC is distributing
5) no-one is suing anyone; no-one has any legal grounds to do so
6) the idiot who's mouthing off is being a cry-baby about the government (the BBC is state-owned, but independently managed) giving away for free things that he and his associates are trying to sell, claiming that it's "unfair competition"
The BBC is perfectly within its legal rights to do what it is doing. What's more, as I help fund the BBC (through the licence fee), it could be argued that I have a moral right to access these recordings, as I helped pay for them. But then I tend to believe that anything that is produced by or on behalf of the government should be accessible to all (where appropriate - obviously there should be exceptions for security reasons, I don't want to know the details of troop movements, etc)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Mod Parent Down Illegal Website
Well there's the problem: these works are in the public domain and copyright law needs to be fixed. Let's extend the period that works stay under copyright to, say, 300 years, thus increasing the incentive for classical composers to write more ace symphonies and ensuring that the record labels get the megabucks they deserve.
I realize the sarcasm, but pipe down. You don't want any legislatures to have that idea in the back of their heads. Scary...
You may be thinking of the case of Baker vs. Sanji which was decided in a venue somewhere in the Middle East of centuries past. In that particular case a poor defendant (Sanji) living in an apartment above a bakery was enjoined in a civil suit by the Baker, who sought damages arising from the defendant's habit of opening his apartment window every morning and taking in the aromas of the dark crusty bread, warm sweet rolls, and crunchy biscuits that wafted up from the bakery- without benefit or recompense to the plaintiff who toiled over the hot ovens to produce the smells. In his complaint the plaintiff argued in court that the defendant had been "stealing" the smells, and sought damages for the "whiffing and sniffing".
The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, but in the remedy phase of the trial issued a symbolic judgment where it was arranged that the plaintiff would hear the "clink clink" sound of the defendant's money as it dropped into a bowl, in lieu of an actual settlement.
All that it takes is people like him and, over time, more and more music becomes unencumbered.
I am surprised that the large corporations have not cottoned onto the idea of free music as an inducement to advertising. Think of the vast sums that they spend just to have their name put in front of people's eyes (think: adverts in football or formula 1 racing). Those cost a lot of money.
What would it cost to commission an orchestra to play Mozart/Beethoven/... and release the MP3s with a short message of the form: ''Beethoven's Moonlight sonata brought to you by XXX, purveyors of fine YYY'' ? If it isn't too intrusive most people would not skip it or edit it from the MP3. The licence could be personal use, no redistribution which means that everyone who wants it should go to their web site and see more adverts for YYY.
It has also done so in this case: Other services offering downloads of classical music
This time I could be arsed.
That said, I find myself watching more and more BBC - partly because as their number of channels have gone up I've found more shows fit.
The upside is of course that since most shows on BBC are relatively free to experiment and not have to be commercial successes, there are often real gems to be found that doesn't get ruined by trying to target the lowest common denominator of a very diverse population.
You're nothing but a theif who wants to be able to steal the property of people who died more than 300 years ago. Property is property, and property rights do not expire.
:)
I am a decendant of Ug, inventor of fire. Every time you light a cigarette you owe me a license fee for using my Intellectual Property. Pay me biatch.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Err Its not actually free. We (Brits) pay a license fee and therefore we have a right to access those performances since we paid from them. If this case wins then ITV and other non-license fee channels could argue that all free t.v is illegal!
First I need to know how the post above can get a "Score:5, Informative" rating? I get the impression the poster doesn't know what he's talking about.
Actually, yes they do.
Not necessarily.
This is about government funded activities competing with private ventures, and is actually a big problem for many companies. A friend of mine who owned a restaurant was put out of business by a neighbouring restaurant financed by tax money.
Morally, I can't tell who's right in this case. Legally, the "idiot cry-baby" is making a valid point. The problem is, where do we draw the line?
Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!
Like if I were to get some Motzart sheet music, and then make a MIDI out of it, rander that to digital using synthesizers, I'd own the copyright.
I can't resist pointing out that if I also created a MIDI that I would own the copyright on my version. In fact my copy and your copy can be bit-for-bit identicial. If someone else then publishes that bunch of bits it is impossible to tell if that is perfectly legal or if it infringes your copyright or if it infringes my copyright until we find out where the got the bits.
What Colour are your bits?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The recordings were issued as part of the BBC's fantastic Beethoven season, which included the broadcast of his complete works on Radio 3 and some terrific television programmes. This is what we in the UK pay our licence fees for, and I felt that this season well and truly earned my entire licence fee for 2005! The record execs are (1) barmy, and (2) entirely unjustified in their attack on the Beeb. What next, should we pay royalties to reveal news stories by word of mouth to our family and friends?
- Consumers are being forced to pay for the BBC to produce those recordings via the BBC's license fee, which is a compulsory tax for those with a TV set. This means that to buy the commercial version you must pay for both: hardly fair competition.
- Due to the huge size of the BBC it can empoloy monopolistic tactics such as using a loss leader to kill off competition. It can also afford to buy any technology it needs even if that technology was developed at risk by smaller commercial organisations.
- In the absence of commecial competition, how likely is the BBC to continue providing this content at the same quality and price. The BBC is mandated to provide free TV, radio and website, but all other aspects of the business are revinue-generating.
Basically, the BBC should avoid doing what can be adequately be provided by the commercial sector. Thing like classical recordings made by the BBC are not free; they will be paid for by us one way or another.
There are a lot of silly lawsuits these days, but sure they're a lot better than agression, murder, corruption or robbery cases.
Also it seems that the common citzen has easy access to the justice, and this is a wonderfull thing. And even better, it shows that the common people can relly on the public defensors when they're accused.
Here at Brasil justice is a thing for the elites, and the commom man, the poor one, don't really has access to it. Also, there is a lot of corruption in our judiciary system... since the judges are indicated, and not elected, and has all sorts of privileges and imunities.
So I for one, think that the amount of silly, or even stupid, lawsuits are a indication of how democracy, and the citzen rights, are respected and valued. Since even this kind of nonsense has it's place before justice... at least it means that everyone has a chance to be listen.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
things that he and his associates are trying to sell
What's more, people in his line of work have (had?) a habit of going to Iron-Curtain principalities to get their orchestras to record the classical works so they could just pay them a couple thousand dollars for all rights to the performances and then never pay royalties or share of profits, which western orchestras would require.
Check out the credits on the typical classical CD's in the record store next time you're in.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Industries that behave the way the entertainment industry has deserves to die. Rather than adapt to the changing nature of their audience they are willing to attack that audience to preserve it. Kind of a cull I guess in their twisted logic.
There is a certain danger for people who sell stuff that people don't "need" pissing off the people who might buy their products. I haven't bought a CD or DVD in five years, partly because there is so little stuff worth having and partly because every time I hear something from the industry, it just pisses me off a little more. Over time, I have found out I don't miss the stuff. I listen to music on the radio and on discs I already own, as well as watch TV, but beyond that I do other stuff that does not contribute to their bottom line. I don't boycott anyone directly, I just don't make an effort towards any of these offerings and have found I can exist quite happily without them. Plus I have more money for when I do want to indulge myself.
Companies that feel they are entitled to a level of profit from the public will do more damage to the economy that any group of terrorists.
Recently in Iowa City (my hometown) there was a guest editorial in the local newspaper complaining that allowing the city's firemen to give one another free haircuts deprived local haircutters of their livelihood. The Mayor and the City Council got on it right away and banned the city's firefighters from giving each other haircuts. (True story.)
So anything you do for somebody else that could potentially make a profit for anyone who is in business is now illegal? You can't give a buddy a free beer, because that deprives the local bar of business. You can't have friends over for dinner because they might have gone to a restaurant for dinner. Heck, you probably can't even have sex with your significant other, because they might have gone to a prostitute!
I hate the 21st century. I think I'll to out and sue somebody.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
One of the things that has been forgotten here, is that the BBC has in its constitution, the requirement that it does not stifle the free market.
There is nothing in UK law [1] that prohibits the BBC nor anyone from releasing noncopyrighted music.
However, UK law isn't what's at question here. What's at question is whether the BBC broke its own rules.
The BBC is funded almost entirely by a tax on television ownership, and overall control belongs to an unelected body appointed by the government. Part of the BBC's responsibilities are to foster the broadcasting market in the UK, a small country that would otherwise be drowned in foriegn imports. This means balancing making more programmes to encourage the market in areas where it is deficient (for instance, classical drama), making quality programmes in areas where competition might otherwise drown the market with low-quality products (for instance, soap operas), and making no programmes in areas where the market already produces diverse quality (for instance, AOR).
[1] Actually there are hardly any UK laws, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have different legal systems. Usually English and Welsh law is identical. Scottish and Northern Irish law frequently differs.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
The BBC is paid for by fees that anybody with a television is required to pay. So, no, whatever you get from the BBC isn't free, it's paid for. Given that the BBC produces some of the best programming anywhere, I think that's still a good deal.
Is it unfair? No. Contrary what companies want you to believe, they exist only because the public lets them. We can dissolve corporate charters, hand out monopolies, regulate companies, put companies under state control, and destroy business models. The only thing we can't do is disown people: people can get whatever their shares are worth after we, the people, are through with doing to a company what we think needs to be done to a company.
As a rule, we don't do a lot of unnecessary things to companies because it is bad. But people need to be reminded every now and then that corporations only exist for our benefit as a society, not for any other purpose.
Sometimes I think we need a (+1, Sarcasm) moderation that is a blend of funny & insightful ...
If the byteme email address wasn't obvious enough, I fear lest the sarcasm be lost on grandparent otherwise.