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?"

Comments

Somebody please, stop the madness

[j0e_average]

It is completely unreasonable to expect compensation for second-hand radio.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Duhavid]

What about second hand smoke?

I think the tobacco companies should sue
everyone for enjoying their products at
second ( or even third ) hand.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[xjimhb]

What's next? Perhaps the newspaper will sue you if you hold a copy so somebody can read over your shoulder?

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Foobar of Borg]

In other news, I'll sue you for copyright infringement for when you quote me on slashdot Or, if you repeat something said on the simpsons

In Soviet Russia, Yakov Smirnoff sues YOU!

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[ediron2]

Heh... second-hand got me to thinking: imagine a second-hand-smoke victim receiving a countersuit by tobacco companies because they were able to inhale cigarette smoke they hadn't paid for.

This is about that absurd.

Theatrical broadcast implies a desire for an audience to hear the performance leading them to the venue. Charging admission shows enrichment. Venue must reimburse the artists in such a case. Sensible so far.

Muzak (or elevator music or bland background music, for those that don't know the slang) creates mood for a particular commercial location (restaurant, store, elevator, or even music-on-hold). This mood is carefully cultivated for whatever commercial goal by the vendor, so the vendor should be reimbursing artists for their help in making the store/restaurant mood.

But music played by workers at a construction site or a repair shop... that's for the benefit of the employees and usually at the expense of the customer. I'd no sooner wander down to the mechanic's to listen to his boom box than I'd want to eavesdrop off most strangers' ipods. Hell, I thought that was the greatest part of ipods: boomboxes became anachronistic jokes.

Charging royalties for unwanted intrusions of music is the most absurd damn thing I've ever heard of, and tries to claim economic value where none exists. It'd be like demanding royalties from the owners of all those noisy damn cars driving around with mega stereos in their trunks rattling my windows...

Hmm... on the other hand, maybe I'm in *favor* of this, if another wave of unwanted noiseboxes are silenced. Dumbass argument, desirable side effect.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Your Pal Dave]

Somebody should compensate me for having to listen to the idiotic station that the jerk in the next cubicle listens to!

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Epsillon]

Actually, the BPI is the UK equivalent of the RIAA. The PRS should really be called the Public Performance Rights Society as they deal with things like taxing live groups doing cover songs for money in pubs, jukeboxes and anything entertainment related being used in a publicly accessible place. Yes, they're bastards, but these are not the bastards you're looking for.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Seumas]

I don't understand the point here.

Radio is supported by advertising. What does it matter if 500 people are listening to 500 radios or 500 are listening to a single radio? I understand that the idea is that "those are 500 people who will not be counted toward royalty payments", but since royalties are entirely calculated by the size of the listening audience -- how does it matter unless some of those 500 people are also part of some "Nielson" family? If they're all listening to separate radios, is some sort of magic going to occur where they can tell that 500 radios are turned on and to a specific station?

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Rodyland]

I'd no sooner wander down to the mechanic's to listen to his boom box than I'd want to eavesdrop off most strangers' ipods. Hell, I thought that was the greatest part of ipods: boomboxes became anachronistic jokes.

Not sure where you travel, but on public transport here in Melbourne, the music coming out of some people's iPods could easily be called a public performance.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[ibentmywookie]

Somebody should compensate me for having to listen to the idiotic station that the jerk in the next cubicle listens to! I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[M. Baranczak]

This is about that absurd. A parable:

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."

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[delong]

You still missed the point. The point is that it doesn't matter how many are listening to a single radio because the broadcaster pays the royalty, full stop.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[cashman73]

I'll ... I'll ... I'll ... set the building on fire! I'll ... I'll ... put strychnine in the guacamole!

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Seumas]

Of course it matters. In fact, that is the apparent entirety of the matter, correct?

The reason a royalties board cares is that they charge fees based on the estimated size of the listening audience. That is why when you submit a request to play music in a commercial or in a store, you have to establish what use it will serve and approximately how many people will hear the music in a certain period of time. Likewise, you have to gauge a radio station's audience to guesstimate how much to charge them.

My point is that -- unless a ton of these people who are listening second-hand are Nielson families (where their listening is actually recorded much like television) -- then what does it matter? The people listening to a single radio would not be counted as individual listeners *ANYWAY*.

Let me put it another way. If ten Nielson Families all watch the same television show on a single television together -- it counts as a single viewer. If ten Nielson Families each watch ten separate televisions, it counts as ten viewers. If ten NON-Nielson Families watch one or ten televisions at a time, it doesn't matter -- because the fact that they are watching is not trackable either way.

So these people listening in an office could not be tracked whether they each had their own radio or not. It would not affect the reported numbers, the estimated audience, the reports to the royalties board or the royalties that would be collected. Not in any way on earth whatso-freaking-ever.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[unlametheweak]

digitalunity:

The answer is simple. When their actions become so brash that the generally uninformed public becomes annoyed with them, people will simply stop buying their products and the **AA mafia will go broke. Vancorps:

is there an example in history where a corporation's behavior was changed using this sort of strategy? Something similar to this happened in India when Indians where forced to buy salt from the British. Mahatma Gandhi went to the ocean and picked up a handful of salt and told people to take it for free.

Reference:
http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/India/SaltMarch.html

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Capsaicin]

So jam it. A nice, dirty, square wave oscillator should do the trick.

Why would you bother doing that when you can just call APRA and inform them that of an ongoing copyright violation? ;)

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Capsaicin]

Here in the Netherlands you also have to pay outrageous amounts of money if you play music in your shop, or your cafe.

Really, you have to admire these guys for the amazing scam they've set up. First they get a copyright payment when the recording is sold (times the number of people who buy the recording). Next they get another payment when a radio station wants to license the right to 'perform' it (times the number of radio stations). Finally (?) they get yet another payment when anyone wants to play (the radio or the recording) in a public place (times the number of cafes, shops, etc etc).

Then the have the audacity to call this stuff intellectual property! What other species of property can you lease so many times simultaneously, without ever having to surrender your own use of it? Wicked!

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[SageMusings]

As long as there are un-purchased Bentleys out there, lawyers are forced to explore these legal issues. Seriously, their backs are against the wall on this.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[rtb61]

But the real problem here is not the music but the radio. Consider the application of the law, if everybody walked into work or any other public space carrying and using their own radio, no one is infringing, the public broadcasting is being done in an electro magnetic spectrum which the radio is receiving and retransmitting. So the courts or the judge are being visibly corrupt in their interpretation of infrgingement.

It is already a licensed public transmission, only the number of devices used to alter the unencrypted signal to a human audible range is in question.

So it is a flagrant and complete corruption of the principles of copyright, which corrupt politicians in collusion with drunken drugged up minstrals have implemented to rip of and steal from the general public.

The only possible infringement would be a long since passed patent infringement on the process of converting the signal. So either the corrupt government stick to the law and administer justice and ban all personal listening devices in those locations and at those times or they accept the proper interpretation of the law and the number of devices used to play a publicly broadcast signal should not affect copyright.

By the current clearly dishonest interpretation, if I use more than one device at a time, so two radios at once, am I and the broadcaster entitled to a discount and pay half price, just like where two people listening to the same device should pay double.

A flagrant and glaring example of corporate and government corruption.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Bert64]

The listeners don't pay for content played on the radio directly, the radio station pays for the right to broadcast the music.
The radio station then makes money from advertisers, who advertise because they consider the listener base a large enough for their commercials.
The music being played on the radio is ALREADY LICENSED for people within range of the station to listen to it, and it's in the stations interest for more people to listen.
Those people who are close enough to the garage to hear the radio, are obviously within range of the radio station and could use their own radio to listen to it if they wanted. The fact that they're not using their own radio is helping the environment in a small way by saving power. I would imagine that virtually all of the customers of this car servicing company own their own radio too, because it's a really long time since i saw any kind of car which didn't have a radio fitted as standard.
Hopefully this ridiculous case will be thrown out with the servicing company being awarded compensation for the legal costs incurred defending against such a pointless suit.

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[davester666]

What's next? Perhaps the newspaper will sue you if you hold a copy so somebody can read over your shoulder?

Um, I recall maybe 10 years ago, some Canadian Newspapers started suing local fast food joints for permitting patrons to leave their newspapers behind for other people to read.

They are licensed for use by just one person, don't you know! No sharing, even at home!

Or I could be drunk and saw this on some old Dr. Who episode...

Re:Somebody please, stop the madness

[Wylfing]

Those people who are close enough to the garage to hear the radio, are obviously within range of the radio station and could use their own radio to listen to it if they wanted.

That's really it. If there are 20 people in a room, and each of them has a radio, all tuned to the same station, this is apparently fine. The absurdity of this claim is that if they all listen to exactly the same content but from one radio instead of 20 radios, that's copyright infringement.

They sure are greedy

[slashqwerty]

Don't the radio stations already pay royalties? Why should the artists collect twice?

Re:They sure are greedy

[Dunbal]

Why should the artists collect twice?

      This has nothing to do with the artists. In fact, the artists will never see a penny of this.

sigh

[wizardforce]

you know what is next, it'll become illegal for anyone to have only one copy of a cd because other people can hear it.

Re:sigh

[CompuGeek]

Or have to pay because a person can smell baking bread at the bakery.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already illegal.

I buy at least 4 copies of each CD, with a separate player and headphones for each. When friends come over, we synchronize playback with the familiar 3-2-1 countdown. Are you saying you don't follow the procedure?

Re:sigh

[Ashlocke]

Perhaps they should put a warning on the portable radio box:

"Using the radio/CD/Casset player for anyone other than the owner is AGAINST THE LAW, AND MAY LEAD TO HARSH FINES."

Disturbing.

Re:sigh

[shutdown -p now]

Well, if we are to learn anything from that old story, then we should keep paying them with the modern analogue of the sound of coins in a shaked purse. Emailed images of scanned dollar bills for the appropriate amount should do the trick!

seriously???

[WwWonka]

seriously?...um...seriously? SERIOUSLY? hold on, let me think about this one a little more...............seriously????

Re:seriously???

[LWATCDR]

It could only happen in America. The Us has a broken legal system. Thank goodness nothing that stupid could ever happen in the EU...
Oh never mind.

This isn't *all* bad...

[EvanED]

If they lose, sanity prevails.

But if they win, it provides precedent to sue anyone driving by with their car stereo too loud, so at least we get something out of the mess.

That really is stupid

[Reality Master 201]

I mean, holy shit, that's possibly the stupidest thing I ever heard.

Thumpmobiles

[anagama]

When the hell is someone going to sue the idiots with the car stereos I can hear a mile away?!!!

Damn right -- get the hell off my lawn.

It's the law

[JustShootMe]

Oddly enough, it is the law. This law may make no sense, but if you want it changed, you have to contect your elected representatives and convince them to change it.

On the flip side, this is what happens when record companies get desperate. That is a good thing, it means they're losing.

I'm all for people getting compensated for their hard work, but by any standard, this is ridiculous.

(Are the headphone makers sponsoring this?)

Re:It's the law

[GaryPatterson]

First the ignored us.
Then they laughed at us.
Then then fought us (costing many of us fines of several thousand, and some people were fined everything and live in squalid bankrupcy to this day)
Then we win (except for everyone sued or taken to court and/or the cleaners by the system that supported the big companies)

Um... Yay?

Not Surprising

[mashade]

As a former restaurant manager, this isn't news to me - though the setting is different.

I was once approached by a BMI agent about the music playing in the kitchen for this same reason. ASCAP and BMI will go after restaurants for royalties from jukeboxes, or bands playing cover songs -- and even your kitchen crew playing their favorite tunes while they work, if it's audible to the customers. That was the stipulation, it had to be quiet enough not to beard from the dining room. Of course, we wanted it that way anyway so as not to interfere with the house music, but on lulls sometimes sound travels.

I thought it had gone too far at that point, without the madness from the RIAA and their relatively recent infringement suits. They've been out of line for a while, folks!

On hold

[MichaelSmith]

Back when I worked for the state government road authority we ran a small call centre for breakdowns, etc. The audio switcher had an input for an on hold message and for a long time we fed in a signal from a commercial radio station.

The theory is that they are broadcasting N copies of their signal anyway, and a few extra listeners are also going to be hearing the advertisements which pay for the broadcast. It scales, so what is the problem?

More to the point, if I listen alone in my car and an advert comes on then I will change to a different station. If I am listening to somebody else's radio then I have to listen to the advert, so by that argument they should be encouraging people to share radios.

Missing the point of the social contract

[Endymion]

They can collect on "public performances" of the radio when they start paying me for trespassing on my property with all that RF.

This is not a copyright violation as it's "publicly performing" things that were already sent out over public airways. Really, it's almost equivalent to the idiots suing because people used the "hacking technology" of HTTP to get the files they publicly offered.

It has been like this for a long time..

[Boap]

That is why most stores use Muzak so they do not get sued for royalties. I worked for a store in 1986 that had to move in this direction as they were sued by the recording industry and they went to Muzak.

Advertising?

[deniable]

Isn't the point of radio to be listened to by as many people as possible. If your song gets airplay then people might buy your album. Wasn't that the whole point of payola? Plus, they get royalties each time the song is played.

This way they can cannibalize the radio audience for a few bucks and keep charging the same royalties. I think I should patent a business model.

I bet their next action is to sue people selling CDs. They'll go after a big offender like Virgin.

Wow

[olddotter]

As an American I am both saddened and happy to see this case is in the UK. It is sad that the stupidity is everywhere. It is nice to see our society isn't the only one about to implode under the weight of insane lawsuits.

IANAL -- My understanding in the US, is that it would be ok to listen to the RADIO in this setting, but not to bring in your own CDs and blast them out. The difference being that the Radio station is paying the royalties for a public performance. Any lawyers want to comment?

HEY! Performing Rights Society..

[YrWrstNtmr]

Kiss
My
Ass

Seriously. WTF do you want? Payment for each and every set of ears that might be in close proximity to a set of speakers that is playing stuff you've already been paid for.

Let me reiterate...
Kiss. My. Ass.

I'm all for it!

[Cleon]

Between this and the RIAA's campaign of suing grandmothers and 12-year-olds, I say--more power to 'em!

The more the recording industry engages in these batshit-crazy pursuits of extra money, the more people will come to realize that the entire "intellectual property" legal system needs to be completely rethought. The EFF can only dream of being able to this kind of support; these bozos manage to do the job well enough on their own.

How about a counter suit, just for fun?

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading about the lawsuit against target.com, under the ADA, for the web site not being friendly to the blind, I was thinking - about a lawsuit against the RIAA for not making music accessible to the deaf? Make them publish all the lyrics or something.

Re:End to elevator music?

[TheDugong]

Nope. Worse, it will perpetuate it.

Elevator music exists because royalties exist. Basically, someone/an organization puts together a CD (or whatever) of crappy/cheasy compositions (what we know as "elevator music") and sells it with a license allowing it to be played in public. This is much cheaper (and easier) than negotiating with individual record companies and artists.

Elevator music aptly demonstrates how copyrights promote the arts.

Seriously?

[log0n]

If they are going to be this petty.. why not take it one step further.. start suing people for singing to/around another person.. start suing people for quoting/tattooing/anything meaningful stanzas to get their fair share.. start suing people for tattooing band names as those are copyrighted and/or trademarked.

Jesus.. I mean.. seriously.. do they even care about their perception with their customers anymore?

I've been taking it one step further than everyone who refuses to buy RIAA/CRIA/UKIA(?) recordings. I make my living in music and I'm doing everything I can to achieve and maintain my measure of "success" while not succumbing to these measures. Just a few weeks ago, I truthfully walked away from a potential career "discovery" because of the terms and games that would have been required to accept - I wasn't willing to sacrifice who I am, what I believe and what my art means to me. I don't know what I may have missed out on.. I can imagine certainly, but I do know exactly how much I wouldn't respect myself and that's far more important to me.

The whole entertainment industry is disgusting. I hope they keep blacking and withering their essence, they are their own cancer that's going to kill them slowly from the inside out.

There may be an upside...

[DaveAtFraud]

Does this mean I can sick the RIAA on the guy in the car in the next lane for blaring his bad taste in music at everyone within a thousand yards of his car? Could be a useful precedent.

Cheers,
Dave

Are you from the US of A?

[SmallFurryCreature]

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?

Re:Are you from the US of A?

[Karthikkito]

What about "+1 Whoosh"?

I know one person who won't object

[rucs_hack]

I have a friend who works in a factory where they blare out music constantly.

He is forced to use an mp3 player with other stuff on just to drown out the endless stream of drivel that is pumped out in the name of pop music. Ok its not all that bad, but I am told that when you hear the same 'hit' several times an hour for weeks on end it does not please. I sort of know what he means, I worked in a factory for a time while at university, and they did the same. I couldn't escape to an mp3 player though.

Stopping this playing of music to an entire factory floor without regard to the people actually working (who cares about the royalties collection people) would not be a bad thing in all cases.

Re:I know one person who won't object

[digitig]

The prohibition on public performance without royalties is more like if you played a CD in front of a crowd of people and somehow charged them money for this (has this ever happened in the history of recorded music?). DJs do it all the time.