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ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings
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."
...needs a cup of tea and a lie down
No sig for the moment.
Even if ASCAP doesn't win, the RIAA will sue for your phone to see if you have any illegal downloaded ring tones.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Does this mean if I have a radio with speakers in a public place I need to pay some kind of fee? I know that businesses which have radios that their customers can hear pay a license fee, but what about people, say, on the beach listening to a boom box? If they don't have to pay a fee, why should people with cell phones or their providers pay a public performance fee?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
. . . why these people have not been struck by a meteor. If there were a God in this universe, there would be a meteor.
Fine, you pricks. We'll stop providing you with free exposure for your shitty music. Happy now?
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
Yet one more reason to avoid ringtones.
Not saying they are correct, just that I hate being forced to listen to someone's obnoxious music every time their phone rings.
Besides, even if it does count as a performance... doesn't selling a license to a song as a ringtone imply the right to use the ring tone without paying each time?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
You are obviously not an attorney and obviously have no legal training, so why don't you not comment on things you know nothing about. Only trademarks can suffer from genericide. Copyright holders can and do selectively choose what to enforce and it has no impact on their rights. A copyright holder could sit back, watch a million people infringe its work but sue you for it cause they felt like it. The only impact it possibly could have is on damages, but even then we have the lovely statutory damages anyways.
Stick to whatever profession you are actually trained in, thanks.
The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
I'm an independent musician, and hate the RIAA, but ASCAP is more of a musician's union than anything else. They are one of the only groups that truly helps artists get paid for their work, in situations where money is already supposed to be set aside for the artists themselves. I have made a fair bit of cash in royalties from tracks that have appeared on networks like VH1 and A&E -- that is money that would have never been reported to me otherwise. If some network wants to use my track in some show, and generate advertising money off of it, then I think the artist deserves their rightful share. FYI: I am not signed to a major label, and I don't have the resources or connections that those acts have. They also help in situations such as radio reporting in places where I don't even speak the language -- as one example, they discovered my music playing on a commercial radio station in eastern Poland, and were able to retrive the royalties I had earned.
So, please don't instinctively tar them with the same brush as the idiots at the RIAA. I don't agree with everything ASCAP does, but in general they are a positive force for trying to help the actual creators of content, not the big labels and corporations.
Even if ASCAP doesn't win, the RIAA will sue for your phone to see if you have any illegal downloaded ring tones.
Well, I think the case begs an interesting question: If this isn't a public performance, then why not? Which exception governs it?
I'm not an IP law student or lawyer, but I don't see an exception that governs this case. I'd imagine that determining when and how to bill when your phone rings in a situation that's sufficiently public would be nightmarish, but it seems like their case passes the laugh test.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I once fell down the stairs and the next day I recieved a bill from ASCAP and RIAA for performing a Lars Ulrich drum solo ... ok, maybe I do mean to be ridiculous.
Do we just let AT&T and ASCAP fight this one out? This is like Iran and North Korea going at it.
Initially I thought they were on crack. Then I realized what would happen if they actually won. Consider the implications for a minute or two and then see if you don't agree...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
-Patents should be 70 years or 30 years after the creator's death
How about not? Make them 10 years. You have 10 years to cash in on your ideas. You want to screw the whole world over in a fit of selfish "VIEW ME AS THE ARTIST I AM!" tantrum, enjoy your 10 years, but the government should not support you after a decade of your decadence. This isn't the industrial revolution or some atomic age. This is the information age where ideas are a dime a million. Today, unlike 20 years ago, everyone has access they need to sell an invention within a few days. Exposure is almost instant, and someone will do it better than you did in one year or less, anyway.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
If a ring tone counts as a public performance then does playing it so loud on your earphones that everyone sitting nearby can recognize the tune also count? If so could ASCAP come after them as well....please!
Sure, anyone has the right to their day in court. On the other hand, it is most certainly the fault of the law if the cost of failing in a malicious or frivolous lawsuit is so minor and the rewards of success are so great that there is every incentive to flood the system.
The system must protect itself if it is to fulfill its alleged role of protecting society. The moment corporations can DDoS the legal system for fun and profit is the moment the legal system stops protecting anyone.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Eh I don't know if you can really blame them. If they can successfully sue then it's entirely the law's fault
Exploiting loopholes is surely something you can blame someone for. If a good lawyer sees a loophole, they should feel a desire to close it, not exploit it. I'm reminded of a law professor I had (BTW IANAL) who described a friend who mowed a two-foot strip of his neighbor's lawn a fraction of an inch lower than the neighbor until the neighbor stopped mowing it. Then he planted a tree in that same strip. After a few years, he sued to essentially steal the land from his neighbor because he had been improving it and maintaining it. The law was on his side. My law prof was telling the tale as an example of an unintended loophole, but he was laughing about it like it was the best practical joke ever.
Then you need to be at city hall with other residents demanding the city noise ordinances get passed.
WE had that problem here. They passed an addendum that made it a $100.00 fine to have your stereo cranked in a residential area,It is specifically for noise levels and covers motorcycles without mufflers and other noise makers. $100.00 for the first fine and $1000.00 for a repeat offense. The city is really hard up for cash so the cops are actually enforcing everything they can and they nailed several stupid kids on it, plus a chain of other tickets as they can give you one for nearly anything. word got out fast and now it's quiet again in the neighborhoods.
Even the idiots on the harleys stopped riding in 1st at 1/2 throttle just to be dick-heads. they now putt quietly through the neighborhoods.
note: if your bike is so crappy that you have to keep blipping the throttle when you are stopped, get it fixed or buy a bike that can idle. I'm a motorcyclist and even I cant figure that one out other than trying to be a jerk.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You have 10 years to cash in on your ideas. You want to screw the whole world over in a fit of selfish "VIEW ME AS THE ARTIST I AM!" tantrum, enjoy your 10 years, but the government should not support you after a decade of your decadence.
The number of people who earn enough money through their patents to be considered decadent is quite small. Patents are supposed to protect people like you, who come up with a great idea, from companies like Microsoft who can steal it and cost-lead your product until you go out of business.
Also, you're living in some sort of fantasy land where you think that all projects can go from early prototypes to final polish release in 10 years. I've worked on projects where the earliest (patented protected) prototype is more than 10 years old, and it's worth hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars and your argument is (apparently) "tough shit you should have sold it sooner!"
The real problem with patency isn't that it protects the inventors monopoly. It's that it's possible to patent practically anything, including ideas. Patency should protect the method of creation, not a concept.