Slashdot Mirror
Singer In Grocery Store Ordered To Pay Royalties
yog writes "An assistant at a grocery store in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, was ordered by the Performing Right Society (PRS) to obtain a performer's license and to pay royalties because she was informally singing popular songs while stocking groceries. The PRS later backed down and apologized. This after the same store had turned off the radio after a warning from the PRS. We have entered an era where music is no longer an art for all to enjoy, but rather a form of private property that must be regulated and taxed like alcohol. 'Music to the ears' has become 'dollars in the bank'."
What's next? Concise Oxford charging for words explained in the dictionary?
That's what this is.
The idea that fining someone for singing to themself while they work. The idea that this could be in any way the right course of action.
There's no other words/term for it.
Bastards.
Come on, it has to be said - this capitalism is getting out of hand. People are getting stupid.
It's sad, really, that it's come to this: the music people (no longer limited to the RIAA) are willing to sue anyone who comes close to their music. They're vastly overcompensating for lost revenues. Even if their concern for the loss is valid, they've shown no restraint or consideration for their actual customers. Now, being excited about music is no longer a good thing if you don't pay for the privilege.
What's next? Suing people who use band or song names in different contexts? Man, Mick Jagger is going to get even richer when proverbists spout out "A [word omitted for fear of legal reprisal] stone gathers no moss."
One can only hope that this doesn't spread to other industries in this manner.
As much as I think this kind of enforcement is ridiculous, before we try to get rid of it we should try to put it to good use: someone needs to get the scientologists to start singing top hits as part of their 'religion'. That would create a (lawyer) fight I would pay to watch.
My webcomic
It'd all work itself out if everytime someone exerted their copyright, the person they're exterting it against had a chance to go to court. And if the copyright holder fails, no more copyright. It instantly becomes public domain. The fact they can lose it would stop alot of this crap..
This has all the marks of a hoax. Even if it's not, still, consider the current media climate in which journalists don't check sources but simply reprint crap that other newspapers cover. Try it yourself...fax in a "press release" to the newspaper and then watch it appear in print the next day, unverified. I used to do that when I worked at a government office, and I was just shocked that nobody ever called my phone number to check. How many hoaxes has the press reported this year, so far?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This is a logical extension of current lunatic copyright laws: the IP Barons want a cut every time anyone, anywhere, performs a song they claim to 'own'. The next step will be to require everyone to wear brain-scanners so that they can charge us every time we 'play' a song inside our heads from memory.
The whole concept of Imaginary Property leads directly to this kind of stupidity, because the very idea of being able to 'own' something which has no physical existence is quite simply insane.
She's an old f'*k that sings, hence disturbing my personal belief of finding my true love while grocery-shopping.
In the fuits section.
While testing melons.
Juicy... melons ... garrrr ...
"We have entered an era where music is no longer an art for all to enjoy"
It is if you make it yourself.
Use an acoustic instrument and its "Green" too.
I guess it is time to sue the music industry for putting songs in our head.
A pround member of the MAFIAA family I suppose...
There's so much anti-US sentent on this site that I just can't resist. This shit doesn't and can't happen in the US.
Maybe a lttle too patriotic but damn I love my country and yes I've been drinking
Everyone here is going to talk about how outrageous it is for a supermarket to be charged for playing the radio, but the fact of the matter is that they use the radio to create a pleasant environment for their customers, which makes it a tool of commerce. Songwriters are the ones who get compensated for this, and rightfully so: people are using the fruits of their labor (music) to help sell merchandise. The supermarket is a business, and licensing the music is part of the cost of doing business. It has been this way for many, many years; we are not entering a new age of PRS thuggery. Without due diligence on this and other fronts, professional songwriters (who are not, by the by, a particularly wealthy lot) would not have an income. And please don't make the claim that songwriters get paid for years for 5 minutes of work, because they write far more songs that get rejected or fail commercially than are successful. It's a job, and not an easy one.
As for the woman being asked to get a license, yes, that is absurd. Probably the representative of the PRS who made the request was new and overeager to please his or her boss, or was maybe just a douchebag. Who knows. It was a truly boneheaded maneuver.
Full disclosure: I'm a songwriter and a member of a PRS. The money I make a year on songwriting could maybe buy a nice dinner. Without someone looking out for my interests, I'd make nothing.
First they took music out of the schools, Then they took the music off the radio, Now they are trying to take the music out of the mouths. I guess the only music the future kids will know is the Televison commericals, and video game music. And it is not from the Evil Big Brother, it is our rich lawyers (pronouced "Li-ars") twisting every penny out every pocket.
Just for this, I'm gonna download TWICE as many mp3 tonight to show those corporate FAT CATS they can't push around the little guy!
I don't listen to radio anymore, as it has become nothing more than a single wholeday ad for music.
cb
Yes, she was ordered to pay royalties. However, shortly afterward, the company sent her flowers, and issued a formal apology (ie, they realized they went *way* too far).
and I quote the article...
"In a note attached to a large bouquet of flowers they said: "We're very sorry we made a big mistake. We hear you have a lovely singing voice and we wish you good luck." "
Seems the only balanced and appropriate response.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It would be difficult to craft laws that would specifically allow singing to yourself, but allow payment for a real performance. One trusts a sense of fairness and common sense to fill in the details. HOWEVER, corporations (and the people who run them, and their lawyers) have lost any shreds of those two things they ever had.
Let's face it - the chief way to obtain money in the US is rapidly becoming simply to sue someone who has it. Very little new, tangible wealth is being produced. How much money is enough? No amount. So we have silliness like this.
Capitalism? Copyright is a form of government regulation on what would otherwise be a free market. It would be more capitalist to abolish copyright.
What's not capitalist about it? It's treating ideas and expression as a form of capital. It would be very un-capitalist not to exploit that for gain.
He's saying Copyright is not a feature of Free Markets. He's just confusing Capitalism with Free Markets, and they don't require each other.
passetspike!
Well obviously all she has to do is make up a freestyle rap remix of each song and sing that instead and she might get away with it. I'd like to see someone at my grocery store bagging groceries while singing a rap or techno/happy hardcore remix of a They Might be Giants song :P
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
...the estate of John Cage to sue everyone all the time for unlicensed performance of 4'33"
Their heirs can sue everybody flying with an helicopter!
I simply cannot believe this. This insanity needs to be stopped right now. My next vote will go to the Pirate Party.
http://www.oed.com/subscribe/
Deleted
Creative Commons music is a good thing.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
The PRS sent her a letter saying that she wasn't allowed the radio on in the store front. She sent a letter back saying "I'll just sing instead". PRS took this to mean "I'll sing to the customers" rather than "I'll sing to myself when working".
I'd be willing to bet she sent an inflammatory letter back to the PRS that helped cause the misunderstanding. In general there's a certain type of people who send these "nanny state gone mad!" stories to tabloids and you never hear the full chain of events.
and your spell checker gets a module that suggests cheaper words to use in your sentences. And it takes in account the extra tax on words the government doesn't like. You can still write what you want but some things are really costly..
You meant "awful", not "aweful". I suppose the problem was that you didn't want to pay Concise Oxford?
It requires scarcity to function.
Which is why people are knocking down houses in the USA...
e.g.
http://www.yidio.com/unsold-houses-knocked-down/id/395665281
http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=19580208
If demand is ever satisfied, the value of the product tends to zero and therefore it is impossible to make profit or to pay the loans which make up our monetary system. This is why there will always be poverty, always be homelessness, and is of course insanity and stupidity of the highest order.
Silvio Gesell identified this particular fundamental problem (and proposed a solution) with the nature of money itself nearly 100 years ago.
Deleted
To people outside the UK, charging you for playing the radio makes no damn sense. After all, the radio station already pays for the music (if it's a standard broadcast) or *you* already pay for the music if it's satellite or CD.
The only reason people like the OP can rationalize the PRS is because they're looking at it through the lens of a culture in which it's the status quo. You see this all the time - people rationalizing or even praising elements of their particular culture that MAKE NO GODDAMN SENSE. I'm not sure whether it's done out of a sort of misplaced nationalism, a lack of imagination, or something else. But it's the only explanation I can think of for the defense of the indefensible, whether it's the PRS, the American health care system, or any other country's unique psychosis.
The irony is that for the vast majority of musicians in the UK, the burden the PRS puts on people is vastly disproportionate to the benefit received. Again, take the original poster - would s/he give up that one dinner a year in order to save business owners the incredible hassle of dealing with the PRS? Not to mention the massive amount of money the PRS must spend on enforcement, which reduces the artists' cut. If the PRS moved to a system where royalties for recording sales and broadcast were higher, and eliminated the tax on playing music in public, how much more profitable would they be?
You are a no-talent hack.
Know something I don't know? Because last time I checked, the documentation of MySQL seemed OK. A little weak on character development, I'll give you, but it got the job done!
This is a joke right?
ok guys really funny... hahahaha
guys?
It won't be the Party that's monitoring us, it'll be the International Media Police. Forget "thought-crime"... New term, TuneCrime: those who show "dis-royalty" by not subscribing to Sony-Music-Groupthink. Emmanuel Goldstein is The Pirate Bay, and Winston? It wasn't the diary or Julia that did him in...it was humming. Technically, still a performance with the telescreen monitor as the audience.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo
Hasn't this already happened with the Kindle?
I admit, I haven't followed the news closely enough under the subject but I believe the text-to-speech feature in the kindle was removed because the MPAA wanted royalties for the feature? Arguably, this is the same situation legally as a teacher reading a book to their class.
and sent her a bunch of flowers.
Get Anonymous outside the PRS offices, singing chart hits of the 90's.
I recommend the Macarena, all day long...
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
jings and helpmaboab, the noo!
How hard would it be for some enterprising radio station to only play GPL/Free/Whatever-isn't-commercial music that the PRS had no jurisdiction over...
They would quickly be the ONLY radio station that business could listen to ( freely ) and they could sue the PRS if they damaged their business by telling people they couldn't listen to the radio without a license... Since it wouldn't be true of that station. ( Better still the PRS might start to include advertising in their notices... eg, Can't listen to stations, other than Radio-GPL )
A captive market and a litigious company doing them free PR work - It doesn't get much better than that...
I wonder how long the PRS would last before the artists realized they were the real enemy...
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
A bar owner in Japan was ordered to pay royalties for playing the harmonica for his customers. As far as I know, the decision has stuck.
http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2006/11/10/elderly-harmoni.html
While there may be many grey areas in practice which is what we have courts for, why not base these things on the simple logic of..
Is the person using the product to make profit?
(Using a hit song as a soundtrack in a movie)
Is the person representing the product in a way that would damage the companies reputation or business model?
(selling cheap fake apple computers)
I'm so confused as to why if someone clearly isn't damaging their brand, and clearly not using the product to make profit. Why do these corporations care??????
As a 29 year old male no one is confuse me as Britney Spears if I were singing Not yet a woman, and i would bet my life on it, no one, and I mean NO ONE is going to pay me to sing it.
The solution to this entire issue is to download, download and download some more. Bittorrent-style, of course. Do not pay a single cent into this system anymore. And then, when your favorite band comes to town go see and support them and buy their bloody T-Shirt. Make your money go where your ears are and cut out the middlemen!
There is something called noise pollution.
In todays world we are bombarded with auditory and visual stimuli every waking moment. There is hardly any place where you can just listen to your own pulse as your heart keeps beating or even just nothing.
Unwanted "music" is classified as noise. After all, wether someone is playing a piano or pushing it down the stairs at 2am would be irrelevant to you unless you happen to be standing in the stairway or own the piano. Same thing when shopping; You are trying to remember if you need milk or eggs. You are not interested in who let the dogs out or what Jay-z is doing in Broklyn. You just want to find the damn cereal and go home.
After finally coming home from a day of intense concentration I don't turn on the radio. I don't turn on the tv. Instead I enjoy some nice, well deserved and for now completely free silence.
Try it sometime. When you finally put on your favourite track it sounds much better when your mind is clear.
Yeah yeah, so what this is a case of is not the PRS being asses that are on an anti-public music witch hunt, it's probably just one of their employees with a serious case of the Monday's. Imagine him being an all-round ass in general, someone that gets a kick out of (imagining) being an authority and he had a rough night, so he took it down on the lady. Let's not make things bigger than they really are.
One chap was phoned by the PRS and was found to be listening to music at work. He informed them he composed the piece and was the sole artist. This cut no ice, with the PRS. (I suppose he might possibly listen to illegal music, so he should be presumed guilty!)
Another incident (2008) relates to the sole owner and lone worker in a garage in Nottingham being told he had to pay £150 to listen to the radio. see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7671215.stm
Even if I listen to my MP3 player through headphones, my company is liable to pay for a licence! Perhaps I'd have to join the smokers outside for my quick fix of some illicit Pink Floyd.
To that I can only say one thing: fuck off.
An excellent and persuasive argument. With your silver tongue and compelling logic I suspect you've probably won over many.
That's how it ought to be. You do work, you get paid. Wanna get paid again? Do more work.
So in other words, the only reasonable model of economic exchange is fee-for-service? Do you hate all kinds of abstract agreements of ownership -- say, over a company or a cooperative -- or is it just copyrights? Do you feel dividends from any kind of entity are also wrong, or is it just music you've singled out?
I can agree that copyrights have become ridiculously long and the legal hedge around them too thick. But the basic copyright bargain makes as much sense as it did 200 years ago: giving people greater protections for the fruits of their creative labor is one powerful way to give them a greater incentive to invest in it. The fact that this idea has limits and balancing consideration we've tipped past doesn't change its merits.
Which, by the way, is how art used to be compensated.
So, clearly, patronage should be the only way to do it, right?
Tweet, tweet.
A classic tale from New Labour Britain - any organisation that can afford to retain lawyers can demand money from innocent people with impunity, because the victims can't afford to defend themselves, even when the alleged tort is, as in this case, non-existent. Holders of rights to songs - often corporations and not songwriters - enjoy a uniquely privileged position under capitalism, receiving as they do a continuing share of the surplus value from their labour. If they want the rest of us to continue to allow them that privilege, they should review their policy of paying the PRS to threaten nuisance lawsuits on their behalf.
This is a truly pitiful state of affairs. Covering other bands' songs, as long as you gave credit to the originating artist, and tribute bands used to be respected as ways of admiring an artist or group, paying homage to their art. What an ugly road the music industry has chosen to take...
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo
The british are so f*Cked up! Who do these people think they are? Royalty?
That would be a way out, back to a more sane, public domain society, which values common goods.
People who want power over everyone and anything are a real PITA. But they have no more power than we let them have.
This is the unfortunate case in the UK. Its a fact that the PRS actively search for people all over the country to impose royalty payments. Our local diner where we collect lunch was only the other day been threatened with a court summon if don't obtain a royalty license to play their tiny radio in their kitchen. Their argument is that customers can hear it and thus they require a performance license, the true fact is that its so damn quiet that you hardly notice it. But in its true nature, its not about being fair, its simply a money grabbing exercise. Time to write to my MP.
I have morals, If you dont like them, I have other ones.
If this is what they are spending their time doing - and more importantly that they feel this is acceptable - then they no longer serve any contributory, useful purpose and must be shut down. In fact all such organizations should be shut down.
Retailers and restaurants in the states have been living with performance rights issues since the nickelodeon days.
ASCAP was founded in 1914:
Early on, founding member Victor Herbert brought a lawsuit against Shanley's Restaurant for refusing to pay royalties. The fight took two years and went to the Supreme Court. ASCAP prevailed. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the decision of the Court: " The Era of the Player Piano (The Early 1900s)
"If the rights under the copyright are infringed only by a performance where money is taken at the door, they are very imperfectly protected. Performances not different in kind from those of the defendants could be given that might compete with and even destroy the success of the monopoly that the law intends the plaintiffs to have. It is enough to say that there is no need to construe the statute so narrowly. The defendants' performances are not eleemosynary. They are part of a total for which the public pays, and the fact that the price of the whole is attributed to a particular item which those present are expected to order is not important.
It is true that the music is not the sole object, but neither is the food, which probably could be got cheaper elsewhere. The object is a repast in surroundings that to people having limited powers of conversation, or disliking the rival noise, give a luxurious pleasure not to be had from eating a silent meal. If music did not pay, it would be given up. If it pays, it pays out of the public's pocket. Whether it pays or not, the purpose of employing it is profit, and that is enough." Herbert v. Shanley Co., 242 U.S. 591 (1917)
Holmes was not one to waste words, summing up the circuit court's decision and reversing it in three short, plain-spoken, paragraphs.
The artist owns the song, you sing it at anytime athttp://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/10/21/2319200/Singer-In-Grocery-Store-Ordered-To-Pay-Royalties?from=rss# home at work in the car you need to pay the artist. you do not own it,
Copyright and patents existed even in the Communist block, and were enforced, too ... except the state owned most of the "Int.Prop." and a private person could not make much money out of his or her copyrights or "invention brevets" unless they already had a cosy position in the hierarchy of the state, party or one one of the professional guilds.
And that's why Alexey Pajitnov never managed to patent his communist block game.
People that don't want to pay for Spice Girls or whatever should go back to singing old british folk songs!
What'd be awesome is if someday they could scan people's brains and, if they had a song stuck in their head, automatically charge their credit card or bank account.
You've brought up some of the common arguments for licensing, however you've missed quite a lot in your argument. Given this is an economics topic you're talking about, you need to analyze the situation using it, else you're just ignoring a large body of study on the very topic you're talking about.
What you're talking about here are positive externalities. You believe that these organizations benefit from the works of the artists, yet they do not have to pay for the production of these works. This means they benefit from the surplus generated by the artists, yet bare none of the cost. That's fine, however you're missing an understanding of the larger market and the complexities in pricing an externality.
Given you opt for regulation, the regulator essentially becomes a monopoly which has control over the distribution of these works. This means the regulator can set the price of the externality and the quantity supplied, which drives up the cost for these businesses. Since the regulator does not operate in a market (there might be some faux market, such as buying credits or similar, I'm unsure in this instance), it has no competition, nor does it have the price mechanism to discover the price of this good. This results in the regulator arbitrarily setting the price, given people don't break the law (most would), then we would see less of these works being distributed, and a higher price being paid. This means the regulator would be able to apply downward pressure on the price paid to it's clients, and take a larger amount of the surplus.
I'm going to leave it there, since it's a much larger topic and ridiculously more complex than I've put it. Especially since there is a market for regulation and it would require us to take into account rent seeking, which includes lobbying. However, we can see that this organization would be granted an extreme amount of control on the music industry, where it could (and would) be able to maximize its own revenue at the sake of the businesses which consume the benefit and the businesses which produce it.
Lets look at it from the other side. You've said songwriters aren't a particularly wealthy lot and you're right. Yet they exist, why is that? Well, song writing has a large amount of intangible benefits, from being associated with it, to sharing your creative works, etc. This means that although it may cost you, you'll still do it, because it still provides benefit to you. Additionally, it can take you $0 to write a song and very little to make it. As distribution, production and marketing costs continue to plummet, we're likely to see less and less money made by these artists, as they assume barley any risk and have a large intangible up side. I hang around a fair few musicians and song writers, most of whom do not make money from it, despite the fact that they are always performing. They call this "Pay to play", where you essentially do it for the fun, excitement and similar.
In a regulated market like this, the businesses which consume the benefit (supermarkets, radio stations, etc) have imposed on them large costs, and the businesses which produce the benefit (musicians, songwriters, etc) receive small benefits from it (due to the downward pressure from the monopolist). This means if businesses which consume the benefit want to stay in business, they need to find revenue streams which are more profitable, as no matter what, they have these costs imposed on them. In this case businesses who produce this benefit and are confident in their ability to generate returns, have an incentive to offset these costs. This means they spend on advertising through the organization, perhaps pay them to play the song, or similar. This means that only larger organizations which are willing to take on the risk that they won't receive enough returns to offset this cost, are the ones who get played the most. Additionally, since we know that these artists aren't "a particularly wealthy lot", we know that these people are going to seek financing to get their music made. Thi
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You breed, the fight is exhilarating, then you wake up and the nightmare of mutilated living things (just like war, btw).
Then you decide it was not such a good idea to create the race in the first place.
What now?
SImple, but hard to do: prohibit further breeding. ...
Same thing with lawyers.
Yep, life is imitating art here. I remember a silly (fake) article in the Viz comic, that was basically this exact same thing. In the article it stated that Paul McCartney demanded royalties as someone was heard walking down the street whistling Penny Lane or something.
Brilliant stuff.
Perhaps PRS need to properly define "Public Performance"? I think it's fair that if someone is making money from performing someones elses music, the original artists should get a cut of it. If, it's a very low-key event making little money I really think it harms society.
That there is no depth of stupidity and depravity to which copyright nazis will not go.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Some stink more than others.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Do you pay council tax on it? How about abandonment? If you leave your REAL property to go to wrack and ruin you can be taken to court and have your stuff taken away from you. Squatters rights on your "property"? Where if someone stays there without paying long enough, you lose the right to keep it and the squatter gets to keep it? How about inheritance taxes? Where your house is taxed when you die, how about your intellectual property being taxed when passed on? Public right of way: you can't build a wall there because people are allowed to walk there. DRM doesn't respect that, does it.
etc
It seems like people want intellectual property to be real property when it comes to the good stuff for them, but want it intellectual only when it comes to their responsibilities for it.
...are the PRS claiming ownership of children that were conceived during a playback of Barry White's greatest hits? Would they like a cut of the combined wages of a man and his wife who met at a concert? How long until certain sea-mammals are hunted down and killed due to flagrant public performances of the legendary Whale Song Anthems 7?
I have no idea how much coke it must have taken for these people to get such an overblown sense of their own importance, but I'm hoping they carry on. Behaviour like this reminds me of the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corp.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
I was thinking of charging rent in my head for making me listen to it. If someone's radio/TV/singing is within earshot I lose my right to be free of their influence on my senses. I started thinking about that 10 years ago when the radio ads started playing Bachelor(unRealityTV) promos, followed by the morning shows blathering on about last week's Survivor. I am proud to say, I have watched 10 minutes of Survivor and 1 episode of Big Brother in my life, and I want those 70 minutes back!
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Well as it happens I am a PRS member.
So I shall be making enquiries about this farce (basically checking the validity of this article) and demanding the sacking of the imbecile(s) responsible.
I had dealings with the prs at one point - weird people, it does not surprise me that they told her to stop singing. In England the nanny state rules supreme a recent example is that two policewomen in Buckinghamshire where asked to stop minding each others children for fear that they might be perverts and that the scheme could be classed as a tax free benefit.
Sounds like I need to write a song, get it popular, and charge people to play or sing it.
Oh wait, I won't get anything will I.
How in the known universe did they find out that somebody is singing in a shop in Scotland? Big Brother is watching you...
I used to buy a lot of music. But that was before pretty much all new pop/rock became nothing more but the same talentless cookie cutter template done over and over and over. My desire for new music died with the death of the guitar solo, which was around 1994 or so.
I already have all the stuff I really want from the 60's-80's classic rock era, and you couldn't PAY me to download the current emotrash crap.
Frankly, I think the RIAA and their foreign bretheren know that the industry is dead, and want to continue to make money over and over again on stuff that is 25+ years old and long since "paid for". I also think the current talentless generation of "artists" is by design, there probably are as many talented people today as there were 20+ years ago, but they just don't get record contracts anymore as they can't be controlled, used, abused, sucked dry, then left on the corner turning tricks for crack like these manufactured "wonders" of today can be.
When I do stumble onto FM radio these days, especially to a rock station, it amazes me how long this crappy, played out, "whinerband" emo sound has outlived whatever usefulness it once had. People used to say the "hair bands" of my day lacked talent. Yet, that era lasted what, 4 years, and today they STILL play it and people will still go to see those bands.
Go figure.
Corporatism != Free Market
No, they don't play the radio to make a pleasant environment for their customers. They play the radio to make spending a day waiting on the general public go by a little quicker and to give them something to listen to while they stock shelves or install muffler systems, or whatever else they're doing.
It's music being broadcast for all to hear. Why should the supermarket pay royalties and the guy in the car with his windows down not have to? If they're playing MUZAK or a CD, fine, they should be paying for that music, but paying for broadcast radio doesn't make sense.
If you're not getting compensated fairly, talk to the radio stations playing your music, don't go after the people listening to it. It's *broadcast* -- thrown out over the airwaves for whoever wants it.
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich mans world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich mans world
Aha-ahaaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
Its a rich mans world
It seems as though there's a case here of someone being a little overzealous in the offices that deal with the above area, but these are the companies that most often guarantee that artists [that are smart enough to retain their own publishing] get paid. It's these companies that are in charge of royalty payments so that means songs played on radio, samples used in other songs and music for adverts. Old people living off the dividends of a once flourishing career are grateful for the cheques that these companies send on a regular basis.
I don't get it ? Why should you have to pay anything for radio? After all if they didn't want you to listen to it thay could digtally encrypt the programm.
If i switch on a light and it illuminates your garden i have no right to ask you to pay for that! I am free to do what ever i want with those photons right?
So where's the difference? It is your fault if you encode unencrypted information in your photons. After all you are the one that is activley forcing my RLC curcuit to start oscillating. I just posess a Resisito Inductor and a Capacitor, items which i am legally entitled to own and connect with wires any way I want.
I think charging people for beeing hit by photons goes is to much. Next time i see someone from the PRS i will flsh my flshlight in his face and send a message in morse code, then he has to pay royalities to me right? After all i made that Message and therefore i have the copyright, It is not my fault, that his eyes were capable of coverting the stream of photons i choose to throw at him into an useful Message.
Sounds more like someone has it in for the store, so they find any old stupid way to frame the staff, so the manager has to shut down. Anyone checked who filed the claims and what rival shop they work at?!?!
Does anyone else think it's ironic that the PRS (Performing Rights Society) whose job it is to collect royalties on behalf of artists is trying to charge a performing artist money?
So just imagine if she had been singing her own material and paid the PRS the required fee - just how much would she see of that money from the PRS when they came to pay out her due royalty earnings? It'd be interesting to know how big a cut they take! :-o
I think an argument could be made that societies support of the musical arts through public schools and other government agencies is responsible for the development of a lot of the artists out there. I propose a 100% tax on ASCAP/BMI/SESAC revenues to repay us... actually as an afterthought let's just outlaw those type of taxes for public performance and call it even.
Moderation drop downs, easy to chose the wrong one, no undo except posting, therefore this post
There had to be some human involvement. Which means a *person* (from the PRS?) must have shopped in her store, and heard the radio (or her singing), and thought, "Hmmm...This is outrageous! I'll have to do something about this! I'll report her!" So, initially, this began with a single idiot. I can only assume that this idiot brought back his report, and more *people* at the PRS thought, "This is outrageous! We'll have to do something about this!". It was then escalated, which resulted in the initial order. So, subsequently, this was perpetuated by more idiots. Somehow, the phrase, "A person is smart. People are stupid.", doesn't seem to apply here.
RIAA now going after people who sing in their showers...
Oink.
Sing or play unencumbered songs from independent groups. The added bonus is that you get to spread the word about indie groups.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
...and don't attach copyright to them, that's the best way to go.
Next they will be suing people for washing their hands.
(To try to prevent the spread of influenza (both H1N1 and seasonal) the department of health is running ads on the radio and tv urging people to wash their hands thoroughly for 20 seconds. "It takes about 20 seconds to sing the Happy Birtthday song twice."
The happy birthday song is copyrighted.
Frankly, this is insane, the World has gone crazy. In the future we will have to carry around a wallet full of bills of our purchases in whatever we have and actions we do.
This is a
It's events like this that I wish we had a regular person (or even better - a panel of regular people) as an observer on copyright cases and had the right to enact the "This is Bullshit" statute.
Simply put, you take action against a person over a copyrighted work and the panel decides "This is Bullshit", then the copyrighted work in question instantly becomes public domain.
Sounds a little random for the legal system, but I guarantee such a setup would produce more sensible results that the current system, which goes to show just how screwed up the current system actually is.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
If the entire world stopped listening to music, and or buying it, it would take about 10 minutes for the radio stations, recording labels RIAA etc to come crying back to us to buy/listen to music. The RIAA et al, are nothing but blood suckers, trying to hold onto an outdated business model.
I was unaware that listening to the radio in a cubicle was taxable. I was under the impression advertising paid for the radio, and the stations already paid for a license to broadcast.
The real question is whether anyone tried arguing this in court?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The funny thing is, this story already has its beginning and its end... yet the headline only addresses the beginning.
What I love about this summary is, it quietly notes that the PRS backed down and apologized, yet then goes on to paint this not as a problem with the PRS trying to abuse copyright, but as a problem with the nature of copyright.
Yes, copyright balances music (and other creative works) as both art for the common enjoyment and property for commercial gain. That is specifically what it is and has always been. That is not what led to this situation. One organization's greed leading it to over-reach its rights under copyriht is what led to this situation. Large organizations abuse every area of law to get what they want; it's nothing unqiue to IP law.
Is copyright as it exists today out of balance? I think so. Is this story an example of that imbalance? Well, since its resolution was correct I guess I'd have to say "no". But I guess we can't let that stand in the way of a good anti-IP FUD-mongering session.
Its just like the asshole that likes to pick fights at a bar... sooner or later they are going to run into some crazy motherfucker and that will be that. Same could be said for home invasion. It just takes one very angry, slightly nuts guy to take things to the next level.
I mean it is one thing to ruin grandma's day by suing her into her grave over 6 Frank Sinatra songs, it is entirely another when they ruin some pretty smart, but very crazy survivalist living in a bunker over the new Metallica Album. Suddenly not so fun a past time for some media exec...
Hey I am I just sayin'!
Of course survivalist guy probably has all his assets in Guns and Gold, but hey, maybe it was his Grandma!
Why not put the music companies out of business for stealing from artists and consumers ?
I think theft is much worse than singing out of key.
I think there is a product that does exactly what you are asking for. Muzak or some play on words. pay a fee, get a unit that can catch the stream and it's commercial free music you can play in your business.
anybody work in retail or other that can confirm this product?
Those who can, do.
in the UK b4 the US.
So, do cab drivers have to turn their radios off when giving a ride to a customer?
Am I allowed to turn up the music in my car if people walking streets can hear it?
Are companies allowed to have music playing in washrooms used by all employees?
Am I allowed to play a guitar for friends and family?
What about karaoke bars? What about regular bars playing radio?
Greed will kill out all of these so called musicians and song writers... the worst thing is that they will blame it on piracy and general population being too musically able to reproduce songs they hear... they are killing themselves, and they are the only people to blame for it.
Anyone know the going royalty rate for "There once was a man from Nantucket..." ?
In support of Yahoo's Hack Day lap dancing success, Microsoft plans to send Steve Ballmer around the nation to spoon with potential Bing developers.
This is the most ridiculous agency since the RIAA I've heard of. To physically harness sounds, to accost people singing. I know the good people of England haven't a clue how to legally end the PRS. The very best thing to do is quit buying music. Quit supporting artists utilizing the industry until the industry dies (as is inevitable)
The upside to the dying industry is; all musical artists will have a level playing field to earn a performance living on, music of all sorts will flourish and you won't be tied down to only bands that the industry selects as cooperative with their profits to listen to. Musicians will make money and possibly a living for a change. Music will be free. Performance will be paid.
The downside to the death of the industry is; it hasn't happened yet and mankind faces the silly gyrations and convulsions of an outdated business model.
All employed by the industry will have to find actual work, beneficial to society instead of enslaving sound and vampiring the talented (who are the last and least to be paid by the industries corrupt system).
Acquire music as you will. Pay no one but the artist directly, avoiding middlemen as the enemy of mankind and liberty.
Just let it die.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...it is my responsibility to enforce all the laws
that haven't been passed yet. It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of
you to the potential consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be
performing which could eventually lead to The Death Penalty (or affect your parents'
credit rating). Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things...
and many of them were driven to these crimes by a horrible force called MUSIC! Our studies
have shown that this horrible force is so dangerous to society at large that laws are being
drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever! Cruel and inhuman punishments are
being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won't conflict with the Constitution
(which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate THE FUTURE).
F. Zappa
I wonder how he could have forseen all this in 1979...
Me goes plooking a Telefunken 47...
Money is a form of free speech. Those with more money have more free speech. Two legs bad. Four legs good.
The idea that someone could own the copyright to a piece of music that consists entirely of silence, is an excellent example of just how fucking stupid the copyright/IP situation has gotten. The fact that someone could be successfully sued for a 6-figure damage total over such an issue should be a screaming indicator telling people just how stupid this is.
Its tantamount to my selling an empty paperback novel - all blank pages - and then suing someone because they included whitespace in their book and I am claiming copyright infringement - I can even point to the specific quotes in their work to prove their guilt.
Now, I can see that there was an association with Cage's original work in that this was a track of silence, and Batt had accredited the work to "Batt/Cage", thus bringing up the association, but how is this not considered to be for comedic purposes, ie fair use? It was a stupid thing to do for the band in retrospect but the idea of copyrighting silence is so extremely ridiculous in the first place, I think its understandable.
I wonder how far this can go before even the average person on the street is upset enough to revolt and do something? Or have we reached the point where we are all so comfortable as sheep that nothing will get a reaction?
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Wow. Gov't has failed big time when this happens. Not having the radio on in a store? Not being able to sing a tune while, you know, living - without paying?
Given that the companies who release music want the radio's to play it so it becomes better known so people will want to buy the cds, go to concerts, etc....why would they not want a supermarket to have their music on---- from the radio?
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
This is soon to become so draconian that Artists and people in the industry will personally suffer. I know that I already have no respect for music industry people. For some, there will be open hostility. It wont be long before someone legally suffering under the current regime will retaliate in the real world...
But then you end up with the reverse situation whereby innovation becomes stifled because copyright protects for so long.
The current length is a problem, and I think we should go back to 14 years with an optional 14 year extension. but it's not an inherent problem with copyrights in general (which the GPP is essentially advocating doing away with), it's a problem with the implementation.
The rights tend to go off to 'enforcement' companies that then collect.
The biggest problem with the enforcement/licensing companies is that they don't work effectively for a large portion of the artists they "represent." This is, again, an implementation problem.
Tweet, tweet.
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
I wonder whom the poet was addressing when he said 'stop here, or gently pass' -- was it RIAA agents?
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi
Someone needs to start a Karaoke Flash mob in front of those laws offices to teach the UK idiots a lesson in humility.
Of course because of the UK big brother cams everyone who participated in it would be tracked down and jailed.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
All over the country, people are singing to themselves without paying royalties for it. Pirates, that's what they are. Filthy thieves. If only 10% of employees do this, the music industry is losing billions!
And let's not forget the times when you're stuck with that melody in your head - repeating it twenty, thirty times, and never paying for it.
Or these filthy pirates in the subway with their mp3-players: Although their i-tunes downloads might be paid for, illegal broadcasting by humming along is certainly not.
It makes me wonder who the people working for the PRS in the UK and the RIAA and MPAA in the US really are. Do they have personal lives? Do they attack anyone they see on the street who is singing a song or watching a movie to get them to prove they have the legal right to sing, listen, or watch copyrighted content?
It seems like the music/movie police have no personal lives at all, that they just sit around trying to figure out who else they can bully and how they can extort millions of dollars from ordinary citizens. They must be cold, heartless bastards with no grasp on reality.
Dear Mr/Ms Rockoon,
We hereby demand that you cease and desist from your practice of copying lyrics of our client's copyrighted song "A Little Help From My Friends", and immediately remove all copies from public Internet sites.
We note that you have sought to profit, in the form of the loan of hearing appendages, in exchange for the performance of said song. This has clearly caused irreparable harm, not only to your hapless (and paradoxically earless) listener, but also to my client, the corporation representing the author of the aforementioned song.
You will need more than a little help from your friends to make my client whole.
Yours Ominously,
E. Scrooge,
Payne & Fears LLP
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
You know, like Mick Jagger, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Madonna, Celine Dione, & various other impoverished, downtrodden performers. The nerve of that wealthy, powerful stock clerk. She got away with it too, which is why the artists' protection organizations like RIAA and MPAA need the right to just kill suspected offenders without the bother of courts and trials.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Heck, if there was a shoutcast station that only played songs from the Archive.org CC music I'd listen to it. (I'm picking archive.org because they seem to be the biggest resource for that kind of stuff that I know of. And I think indexing under the random stations listing would be appropriate.) Trying to find the good CC music is a bit of a process in itself (so much crazy random stuff), yet within the midst of many low quality tracks that may as well be "Joe Shmoe singing in the shower as recorded by a friend who thinks it's funny" I have found quality music that is quite enjoyable. Music that rivals or exceeds the quality of stuff put out by the big studios that drive pop-media. Things like public orchestra performances, or indie artists with a nice home studio setup, cool electronica synth grooves, or a good bootleg from a feed by provided by some jam or ska band during their live performance. (Yes, there are some real gems to be found in every genre if you are patient enough to browse through the mediocre randomness to find them.)
Here's how I'd set programming for the All CC Shoutcast Station: Its playlist is determined by email requests and a limited repeat policy per day. (With enough listeners contributing, good stuff should come up to the top fairly quick.) There would also be one day of the week that is a truely random playlist as chosen by a computer to help bring up new stuff. (Basically an automated version of the haystack sorting one does when browsing for new interesting CC tunes.) And there may be a special genre day or session where all music picked and sent in has to fit a random-picked genre. There would be some mention of a paypal address for donations after every 10 songs or so, such that getting listener sponsorship shouldn't be a problem - and to keep the station commercial free. There would be some DJ chatter about upcoming playlist music and genre-day features, but other than that it would be minimal. (This makes me wonder why Archive.org isn't doing that already.)
If there is such a "net radio" shoutcast station already, I'd like to know. (I doubt any there's any real radio station other than college or pirate would try this, since broadcast rights on the "public" airwaves are bought and paid for by big media.)
If I were a recording artist, I'd be recording a track of what sounds like someone typing on a keyboard. Therefore anyone typing on a keyboard, would be violating the copyright. So there ..... I know that most people on Slashdot type on a keyboard. You'd all be fucked. Who needs karaoke wannabes to make serious dough?
You're transmitting your song over public airwaves. These airwaves are a limited resource that we give a monopoly over (e.g. each channel). You make plenty of money off the exposure you get on the radio. If you don't like it, don't broadcast you're fsckin' music over public airwaives
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Good that they're doing this, do it again and again! Keep doing it until people begin to see just how greedy, sleazy, and utterly ridiculous these people are! Let them keep putting the screws to the public until finally they wake up and see these crooks for what they are. Finally one day people will get a clue - it needs to happen. Sooner rather than later would make me happy...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
You know, there's a way out of this. It's called EXCLUSIVELY playing material that's already in the public domain.
Sure, you won't get Top 40 crap - that's a benefit, by the way - but if you're after appealing background noises for a retail environment you'd be amazed at what's available. One of the best recordings of Rhapsody in Blue I've heard dates from 1927.
Play these recordings, arrange for somone to "anonymously" call the Music Police to report you, and when the bastards turn up simply ask them to leave the premises as you're not doing anything wrong - without explaining why you're in the right and they're not. Keep logs of what you play, and where you sourced it. Do NOT let any staff play ANYTHING else. Let the Music Police threaten to sue you. Insist that you've done nothing wrong. Let them get their lawyers involved, and let them run up some legal costs, then get the press involved.
If they're going to play stupid games like threatening action over someone "performing" songs while they're stacking supermarket shelves, they deserve everything they get. I hear there's a lot of stuff from the 40's that's not covered in the UK and Scotland any more, so that covers all the really great swing-era stuff, although I hear Sir Cliff is a little pissed about the fact that he may soon stop getting royalties for Summer Holiday and is trying to pull a Disney...
If someone tried this shit on me, I would have no choice but to write my own song, "Go Fuck Yourself". ...of course, it would be licensed under creative commons.
No *true* Scotsman would enforce copyrights...
I take it you're referring to the No True Scotsman logical fallacy.
The blurb from Wikipedia says:
No true Scotsman is a logical fallacy where the meaning of a term is ad hoc redefined to make a desired assertion about it true.
(Also known as Proof by Semantic Shift, according to my fortune.)
Also worth quoting is the non-example:
it is perfectly justified to say, "No true vegetarian eats meat," because not eating meat is the single thing that precisely defines a person as a vegetarian.
What is it you think is being redefined? Kethinov is talking about regulations which interfere with a free market---not all regulations. In other words, he's saying that the meat-eating (market-interfering) copyright is not a true vegetarian (non-interfering regulation).
Unless there's something I'm missing?
Here's a fun fact from economics: when polled, people will say that they want
The only way I know of to keep giving people what they want is by starting in a situation where the public till is getting fuller and then employing Zeno's paradox ;-)
Dear PRS, Please come and procecute my neighbour for playing his music too loud everynight. It can be heard all the way up and down my street and I'm afraid we are all recieving unlawful preformances of copyrighted music (no matter how tasteless it might be). ~Bleeding-Ears Joe
I can't even begin to fathom how utterly SCREWED I'd be. I sing everywhere, including grocery stores. And I don't even WORK in one. And movie quotes? Orson Welles would rise from the grave and slap a lawsuit on me so fast for screaming, "Don't worry about me! Don't worry about me, Geddes! I'm CHARLES FOSTER KANE!" in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Don't ask. Hard day.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
PRS: Hey, who sings that song?
Sandra Burt: Mick Jagger.
PRS: Yeah, let's keep it that way.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
We have entered an era where music is no longer an art for all to enjoy, but rather a form of private property that must be regulated and taxed like alcohol.
No, we have NOT! It always takes two sides, for a change in rules to happen. The side who tries to enforce the new rule, and the person accepting it.
Which in this case means the criminal / crazy person, trying to enforce a not-from-this-world joke kind of rule, and the total utter retard who is actually buying into that shit.
Are you telling me, that you are that retard? I don't think so.
But then stop talking is that way. You are stronger than that. You can't always cave in, when someone creates a new bullshit rule against you. Or else, what is your life and word worth really?
If you let others play with you in that way, you're no better than cattle. Sorry. I don't think you're cattle or a retard. Just please stop acting like one. Even if it's unintended. You are not only hurting yourself with that. You are hurting us all, by empowering that sick new rule. Which means, we have to defend us against you too. And honestly, I don't want to do you any harm.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
So eventually people won't be able to sing or listen to horrible pop tunes that are written only for monetary gain. This is what I've been hoping for my whole life.
As a musician, I find this absolutely sickening. As a human being, I find this absolutely sickening. Music is special. It can create or change moods. It has a major effect on the brain.People used to record and release music because they thought it was good and could make them money. People who liked music ran those companies. Today, accountants and MBA's run those companies and you hear what you are getting, much less good music and more crap. As an old fart, I can tell you music is a lot worse with more crap to sort through to find the few good things to listen to. CD's are one or two hits and a lot of filler. The RIAA is a dinosaur and should die quietly. I used to get excited about new music and so did my friends. When's the last time someone said to you,"You gotta hear this, it's amazing"?