Slashdot Mirror
Bar Performer Arrested For Copyright Violations
Edis Krad writes, "An elderly Japanese bar manager and performer has been arrested for playing copyrighted songs on his harmonica. From the article: 'Investigators accuse Toyoda of illegally performing 33 songs such as the Beatles' songs "Here, There and Everywhere" and "Yesterday," whose copyrights are managed by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. He allegedly performed the songs on the harmonica with a female pianist at the bar he operated between August and September this year.' This is for all those kids who are learning chords on their guitars — be ready to pay fees for practicing 'Smoke On The Water.' This story seems to be legit, though it reads like an Onion piece. It's only being reported in the Mainichi Daily News via MSN.
Now that there's international precedence, expect to see the RIAA lobbying for similarly harsh enforcement of copyright law around here (OK, maybe not this bad). The trouble with copyright infringement cases like these is where to draw the line. Logically a band covering another song in a large venue for a paying crowd should pay some type of usage fees, while little Johnny shouldn't need to pay anything for playing the Star Wars theme at his small piano recital. But everywhere between those two extremes it gets pretty murky.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
This story seems to be legit, though it reads like an Onion piece. It's only being reported in the Mainichi Daily News via MSN.
This sounds too much like a joke. In theory, this is supposed to be impossible. In the USA, and one would presume Japan as well, bars/nightclubs are responsible for paying fees to composer societies (this includes ASCAP and BMI in the USA) to cover exactly this sort of thing - a performer performing copywritten material. In the USA I've heard of ASCAP and BMI going after bars and nightclubs who didn't pay them money, but never performers. Again, I can't speak for Japanese law, but in the USA it is clear that it is the owner of the performance venue, not the artist, who has to pay this fee.
Bars in the United States pay either ASCAP or RIAA (I think it's ASCAP) a flat rate for playing songs in their establishments. The association actually has undecover monitors that check out bars and other venues and then sue if the establishment isn't paying royalties. I really don't have a problem with this part ... but arrests seem to go overboard.
seg fault
If the story is true, even if this guy didn't pay his licensing fees, does he really need to be arrested? The last time I checked copyright infringement was not a criminal offense but a civil offense. Large scale bootleggers are usually charged with something more substantial like fraud, mail fraud, etc which make their actions criminal. IANAL. Somebody inform me on this.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This happens all the time. ASCAP & BMI have reps that go around to bars and start billing the owners for public performance. I have been told that they rarely approach bands but almost every bar that has live or even recorded music, juke box etc get hit by bills from the song publishing companies.
As has been pointed out, this particular case is covered by bars paying ASCAP fees.
But this brings up an excellent point. In a culture where all intellectual "property" is owned, can we be far from though crimes by just humming a song?
The irony is thick here. George Harrison, a member of the Beatles, was sued and lost for unintentionally copying "My Sweet Lord" from the Chiffons' song "He's So Fine". It was a major blow to Harrison.
The problem is that the record companies that own the copyrights own monopolies on rights, and can conceivably charge as much as they want for these rights. The arms race has already started for movie licenses for songs. In the commentary for the Blues Brother's, John Landis comments that a movie of this type will probably never be made again, because the astronomical cost of music licensing.
The only conceivable long term solution is free culture. Society will still find ways to reward authors for their contributions without the current licensing nightmare. That is the only way culture will be able to keep evolving. The mix-ups, mash-downs, movies and cultural references in the future depend on having unencumbered source material. And the more the copyrights holders squeeze, the quicker this will happen.