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ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings

Posted by kdawson on from the don't-even-think-about-whistling-the-beatles dept.

gerddie notes a piece up on the EFF site outlining the fairly outlandish legal theories ASCAP is trying out in their court fight with AT&T. "ASCAP (the same folks who went after Girl Scouts for singing around a campfire) appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by 'publicly performing' it without a license. At least that's the import of a brief (PDF, 2.5 MB) it filed in ASCAP's court battle with mobile phone giant AT&T."

3 of 461 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about radios, etc? by pbhj · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    (ii) the transmission thus received is further transmitted to the public;

    In the hypothetical boom-box situation then the music is being further transmitted (as sounds waves in the air) to the public. Ergo, you've contradicted yourself here and the GP is correct that use of a radio with speakers in public is infringing activity.

    Aside: Under UK law if you watch a movie (that you've a license to watch) in a school and the movie contains songs in the soundtrack then you're infringing the songwriters copyright (according to The PRS Limited). I think Copyright Law is my favourite type of idiocy.

  2. Go to hell asshat moderators by damn_registrars · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Why the fuck my earlier comment was moderated (-1, troll) is beyond me. Whomever I pissed off, you can go fuck yourself. If you don't like phones that ring, you can go beat off somewhere. What I said was not trolling. And if you moderated it down just because it was my comment and you hate me, you can go to hell twice.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Go to hell asshat moderators by Lesrahpem · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Why the fuck my earlier comment was moderated (-1, troll) is beyond me. Whomever I pissed off, you can go fuck yourself. If you don't like phones that ring, you can go beat off somewhere. What I said was not trolling. And if you moderated it down just because it was my comment and you hate me, you can go to hell twice.

      Honestly... who actually enjoys the sound of a ringing phone? If you enjoy phones that ring maybe you should be a telemarketer. Then you can call your !favorite moderator while they go beat off somewhere to the image of you slamming your face into your keyboard in anger at this atrocity.