Slashdot Mirror
Listening To The Radio At Work? Prepare To Be Sued
MLCT writes "The Performing Rights Society, one of the UK's royalties collecting societies, has taken a Scottish car servicing company to court because the employees are alleged to have been listening to the radio at work, allowing the music to be 'heard by colleagues and customers'. The PRS is seeking £200,000 in damages for the 'performances of the music' which they claim equates to copyright infringement. The judge, Lord Emslie, has ruled that the case can continue to hearing evidence, commenting that the key point to note was that music was 'audibly blaring from employee's radios'. Where do the extents of a 'public performance' end? Radios on in cabs?"
Don't the radio stations already pay royalties? Why should the artists collect twice?
Nasrudin was walking down the street one day, and came upon a man arguing with a merchant who was selling stew out of a street stall. According to the merchant, the man spent all day hanging around next to the stall, inhaling the aroma of the stew, but not buying anything; the merchant was demanding compensation for the service that he provided.
Nasrudin, hearing this, took the man's money purse, held it near the merchant's head, and shook it gently for a few moments. Then he said: "Now you're even. He's smelled your food, and you've heard his money jingle."
I am not, but even I heard of a small case that happened on your shores when a company went to far. Ever heard of the British East India Company? It had to do with some added tax/levy or something being added to tea. I think it caused a bit of a riot in boston, local affair, easy to miss but some people were upset about it.
Offcourse, this involved goverments but since back then the lines between goverment and business was often very blurred (unlike today when we see absolutly no blurring of any kind *cough*) this might be considered a case of a very succesfull (if you are an american) embargo against a company that pushed its customers too far.
Does it work in other cases? Well, note the difference in genetically engineered products in the US of A and europe, the europeans have long since been against any such crap and so companies make it very clear that they don't put it in their products.
More or less any normal business listens to its customers, the problems start to occur when a business becomes more then just trying to sell you a product and becomes a power. Your local supermarket is a business, Walmart is close to being a Power, the RIAA is a power. What do I mean by that? You can easily shop somewhere else then your local supermarket, it has no control over you, if the local manager does something you don't like, it is easy to boycot him. It is far harder to get around Walmart. Or for the dutch, AH. If AH does something bad, you are soon faced with the problem that they own many other chain of supermarkets as well.
The RIAA is even worse, in many cases they ARE music. The have become almost a legal power like the tax offices, they can collect their music tax for any music they like even if the original owner doesn't want them too. This would be roughly the same as the police ticketing people for driving to fast on private property (they can't and don't do this, this is why racetracks can operate).
It is very hard to get around the various music copyright groups because no matter what music you listen too, they have been given control over it.
But succesfull embargo's are legion, blacks boycotting businesses in america, the India rebellion against british rule etc etc.
On a much small scale, there were temporary success against the fur trade. Against whaling and sealing.
Embargo's work, even against semi-goverment organisations, but the "people" need a lot of will power to pull it off. Often the answer is that somebody equally powerfull takes up the fight, in recent years that have been popstars, who through their fame could pull the people into a single group to raise a voice. Bit of a pity that popstars and the RIAA are in the same bed eh?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.