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SABAM Wants Truckers To Pay For Listening To Radio
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.'"
I'd be fine with this, as long as the beancounters are forced to personally visit every single trucker in person, and attempt to extract their fees.
I'd imagine they'd soon have a 'close encounter of the truckstop kind'... perfect sort of punishment for this level of arrogance. Next they'll be demanding fees for listening to the radio while driving to work. The publishing industry will stop at nothing to fraudulently demand fees for others' works.
Perhaps they have forgotten the reasons why music is broadcast over the radio for free in the first place?
1. Advertising revenue
2. Free promotion of new music
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
They have either paid for the music on CD, or the radio stations have already paid their dues.
What's next, people who whistle getting charged for public performances?
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
The radio station broadcasting it already paid the royalties for a license to broadcast it.
Double dipping hogwash.
No, if you are driving as part of a business then you can't listen to music unless the business have brought the appropriate protection money, so this would apply to anyone traveling on company business. Trucks, Salesman, Field Support etc.
The group are taking the current rules and applying them to their logical conclusion, hopeful this will prompt government to wonder if the rules as they are currently implemented actually make sense.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
KODA, the Danish equivalent of RIAA, had a case in Højesteret (Danish High Court) in 2003 that basically said that when you're at work, the broadcast licence rules for companies is in effect, even if you're a single trucker in a truck.
Only a few articles in Danish media covered it then. Here's the official statement from KODA at the time and a Google translation here
(weird links in preview -- wonder how they'll look when I press submit...)
A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
And why pick on truckies (not a group, actually, I'd choose to pick on, but there you go)? Why not - well, anyone?
Because that's step 5 of their plan.
Step 2 will be taxi's and public transport.
Step 3 includes ALL business cars during business hours.
Step 4 is to tax all vehicles used to commute to work.
Step 5 is just to tax every vehicle.
It takes some time for each of these steps to go from "completely unreasonable" to "just a bit les reasonable than the previous law".
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
ASSCAP, Asscrap, Monday (NNN) — After its recent successes suing girl scouts over singing copyrighted songs around campfires, the American Super-Society of Composers, Authors and Performers has filed a brief in a lawsuit against AT&T arguing that its members deserve payment every time a mobile phone rings.
The owners of the musical compositions are already paid for each ringtone download, but this does not cover ASCAP public performance royalties.
"The musicians and songwriters are the true creators of objective value in society," said ASCAP spokesdroid Ayn Rand. "They deserve your support. How would civilisation survive without Crazy Frog or the Nokia Tune? Which changes one note from the 1902 'Gran Vals' by Francisco Tárrega, so is completely original and deserving of royalties.
"To this end, we are bringing suits against those individuals who, having purchased RIAA-licensed ringtones, do not then silence them when in public. Statutory damages of $80,000 should have a salutary effect on our coffers and, of course, our public image."
Further lawsuits will then be brought against those who silence their mobile phones. "4'33' by John Cage is a copyrighted work. Without the money going to his estate, he may never write another measured piece of silence again." This will be followed by suits against those whistling or humming music in public, then those thinking about music in any form without a licence.
In support of their position, ASCAP pointed to vast public outpourings of sympathy from millions of people who never wanted to hear a tinny thirty-second burst of cheesy synthetic R&B coming from a phone ever again in their lives.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I'm sorry, if you don't want anyone to listen to your music, don't broadcast it.
This is like people who post shit on the web and get butthurt when people link to it. If you don't want people having whatever it is you're serving, don't put a computer on the web that doles it out in response to a HTTP GET request.
If you don't want people listening to your music, don't broadcast it as an unencrypted FM signal. You should not be able to broadcast something in the clear and then put conditions on who can tune in.
Then see how fast big content gets on board with net neutrality.
Thanks for clearing that much up. But I, and I am sure lots of other slashdotters, am still unclear on one detail.
What is a female?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Well %$#^* Belgium! Pardon my French.
That should have been "Fuck B-----m!".
Mask the expletives according to their nastiness.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Actually, a tax on overly large sound systems could be a bonus.
Anyway, 10m is the 28MHz amateur radio band (10m being the wavelength). Ham gear is more powerful, and can drive larger linear amplifiers (the 'kicker' in CB parlance). A 1600W linear is going to need around 100W of drive, so the ham radio would work nicely. I think the legal limit of a CB is something like 10W, which would underdrive the linear.
The US obsession with RF power never ceases to amaze me, especially when I'm using 5W to talk to an operator running 1500W. The QRP mantra: power is no substitute for skill.
As you say, I can't believe I am biting at the troll ...
Do you know why truckers keep a dog as a traveling companion?
Because a sheep would be too obvious.
Wait a second. This article doesn't make sense even if it is translated correctly.
It's really easy for those copyright owners to protect themselves from these people who, from the copyright owners' perspective, apparently, are "stealing" from them or somehow hearing the songs unfairly. It's really easy to do that, and we already have a system set up for that. We don't need a new governmental or semi-governmental program to protect the copyright owners in this case, because we already have that system.
The system is called DON'T FUCKING BROADCAST YOUR FUCKING SONGS ON THE MOTHERFUCKING AIR IF YOU DON'T FUCKING WANT PEOPLE TO FUCKING LISTEN TO THEM YOU FUCKING FUCK. Fer fuck's sake, honestly.
Oh, really? You are being so injured by people listening to your broadcasts? Well here's what I suggest you do to fix that: NOTHING. DO NOTHING. DO NOT BROADCAST YOUR SHIT, AND PEOPLE WON'T HEAR YOUR SHIT. Mission accomplished.