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SABAM Wants Truckers To Pay For Listening To Radio

Posted by Soulskill on from the tell-us-of-your-plight dept.

guruevi writes "SABAM, the Belgian RIAA, wants truckers to start paying for the copyrights to listen to the radio in their cabin (Google translation of Dutch original). SABAM already has a system in place to extract fees from businesses for having radios in the work area for businesses with more than 9 employees, and they find that truckers' cabins are areas of work and thus infringe on their copyrights. The local politicians think this is going too far; they believe truckers need a radio for safety reasons and view a truck cabin as 'an intimate place.'"

4 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. BS by shentino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The radio station broadcasting it already paid the royalties for a license to broadcast it.

    Double dipping hogwash.

  2. Re:I'd be fine with this, as long as... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The industry is dying. They're going after any revenue stream they can dream up now.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Bah. by Entropius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sorry, if you don't want anyone to listen to your music, don't broadcast it.

    This is like people who post shit on the web and get butthurt when people link to it. If you don't want people having whatever it is you're serving, don't put a computer on the web that doles it out in response to a HTTP GET request.

    If you don't want people listening to your music, don't broadcast it as an unencrypted FM signal. You should not be able to broadcast something in the clear and then put conditions on who can tune in.

  4. Re:Logical conclusions... by deniable · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, a tax on overly large sound systems could be a bonus.