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'."
This is an example of media control gone nuts. Didn't someone in jest say about 3 years ago that this would happen, somewhere in the world?
Om, nomnomnom...
Back in college, I worked in a restaurant where initially we played the radio in the kitchen for employees during slow hours. At some point, we received a warning letter, so we got rid of the radio, which only employees could hear, and replaced it with a speaker system that played throughout the restaurant. We then changed the policy so that only cds brought in by employees could be played over the speakers. As far as I know (havent worked there in 3 years), they still don't pay anything for doing so.
I admit I'd like to know more about the case - I've not found anywhere detailing what she was singing. But in this case your argument is flawed.
The woman had already had her radio taken away as the shop did not have a license to broadcast either CDs (which they had paid for) or Radio (which is already paid for - either by the BBCs 'cat all television license' or by advertising). This form of double payment is incredulous at best, in cases such as these where a claim is being made the business should pay extra to act as a proxy for a service designed to increase add revenue to the industry (Why is the music industry not paying private businesses to play the music in promotion?).
With nothing else to listen too the woman would sing while stacking the shelves. How is that going to encourage business in a local corner shop. I have no doubt she is an aweful singer. Second to that, how is this costing the music industry anything? What losses are they claiming back?
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Deleted
Was this before or after the public backlash against such a damaging PR fuckup? This is the difference between "they may be, after all, a decent, level-headed group" and "those evil-doers are desperate to minimize the shitstorm they cast their way due to their arrogance and greed".
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
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?
All property rights are legal fictions enforced by governments.
Real property rights often have some justification even without the legal fiction, and they have reflections in social codes.
That taking a piece of property deprives someone of that property can be demonstrated even without any law. There's a strong social code against it, even beside the law. Borrowing on the other hand is much less clear-cut which is also reflected in social code, where refusing to lend something may be frowned upon, even while the ownership is clearly established.
In the case of land there's a wide variation of law; many countries do not have any restriction against crossing someone's land, and more countries seem to be moving towards roaming rights. In some countries you're free to pick all the berries and mushrooms you want on private land; if they want it, they should indicate it through fencing or signs (which is a demonstrable economic gain; unused resources get utilized at no loss to anyone else). Again, a reflection of demonstrable natural situations valid even without the presence of law.
Intellectual 'property' on the other hand, has no such natural expression. Without the actual law there is no demonstrable harm. In fact, the law itself contradicts natural social rules as it prevents maximization of both freedom and experienced wealth, causing demonstrable harm to everyone who is prevented to perform, copy or display things that would cause nobody else harm.
Ultimately intellectual 'property' laws are counter productive and damaging to the economy. Without being founded in social codes they have no real justification and ignoring them is never 'wrong', it may even be a moral duty, even if it may be 'illegal'.
Right now, one of the political parties in my country has taken the position that we can spend literally trillions of dollars on wars on multiple fronts, tens of billions more on a war against drugs, more on keeping a tremendous fraction of its population in prison, AND THAT DOING THIS WHILE REDUCING THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT TO A TRIVIAL FRACTION IS POSSIBLE.
The other major party just might be addressing these problems a little, and they generally don't advocate actually reducing the government to a tiny fraction of what's needed, but they agree with the first party that they can keep up these programs WHILE EVENTUALLY AVOIDING ANY MORE DEFICIT SPENDING.
Neither is a sane, healthy position, even though one is obviously a full blown delusional psychosis and the other might marginally qualify as just a case of being neurotic enough to only function at a modest percentage of potential, if things stay routine and the stress doesn't get too bad.
It's called cognitive dissonance. A news channel simultaneously says they're the most popular source in the world, AND their viewers are a small, persecuted minority. Businesses say they want free markets but need special government protections for their business models.
That's why I dislike it when people say "in the real world" about these things. If that much of the real world really believes such self contradictory ideas, that doesn't somehow magically make them sustainable. It just means 'the real world' is headed for chaos.
Who is John Cabal?
This is so true. I'm also a musician who enjoys writing and performing my own material. I have no real desire to become huge, I just enjoy what I do and hope that I give enjoyment to others. The problem is that the venues for me to play at my level are becoming fewer and fewer. The PRS effectively insists that all venues pay to join their organisation any live music is performed there. I know they deny this on their site, and that technically it is possible for venues to allow music by non-PRS members, but the guilty until proved innocent model makes it almost impossible for them to opt-out of the system.
The way they work is that if a pub puts on bands and the pub is not a member of the PRS, they have to prove that no cover versions of PRS artists were played. This means that a pub owner effectively has to know every song ever registered with a publishing company in order to police this and legally opt out of the system. They can, and will, be asked to provide set-lists in their defence. So what do they do, they stop putting on live music as its too much hassle. What's even worse is that say a band covers one of my songs, then the PRS will collect royalties on my behalf whether I want them to or not. You cannot opt out as a musician either (so those of you who blame greedy musicians for this situation as well, please think again)
Not only are the record companies killing recorded music, the PRS and their ilk are killing live music.
Listen to my latest album here