Turn down the radio, you might get sued

Luis G

Luis G

<i><b>Problemator</b></i>
Staff member
No it isn't related to public disturbance, we're talking alleged copyright infringement.

A car repair firm has been taken to court accused of infringing musical copyright because its employees listen to radios at work.

The action against the Kwik-Fit Group has been brought by the Performing Rights Society which collects royalties for songwriters and performers.

At a procedural hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh a judge refused to dismiss the £200,000 damages claim.

Kwik-Fit wanted the case brought against it thrown out.

Lord Emslie ruled that the action can go ahead with evidence being heard.

The PRS claimed that Kwik-Fit mechanics routinely use personal radios while working at service centres across the UK and that music, protected by copyright, could be heard by colleagues and customers.

It is maintained that amounts to the "playing" or "performance" of the music in public and renders the firm guilty of infringing copyright.

The Edinburgh-based firm, founded by Sir Tom Farmer, is contesting the action and said it has a 10 year policy banning the use of personal radios in the workplace.

Playing music

The PRS lodged details of countrywide inspection data over the audible playing of music at Kwik-Fit on more than 250 occasions in and after 2005.

It claimed that its pleadings in the action were more than enough to allow a hearing of evidence in the case at which they would expect to establish everything allegedly found and recorded at inspection visits.

Lord Emslie said: "The key point to note, it was said, was that the findings on each occasion were the same with music audibly 'blaring' from employee's radios in such circumstances that the defenders' [Kwik-Fit] local and central management could not have failed to be aware of what was going on."

The judge said: "The allegations are of a widespread and consistent picture emerging over many years whereby routine copyright infringement in the workplace was, or inferentially must have been, known to and 'authorised' or 'permitted' by local and central management."

He said that if that was established after evidence it was "at least possible" that liability for copyright infringement would be brought home against Kwik-Fit.

But Lord Emslie said he should not be taken as accepting that the PRS would necessarily succeed in their claims.

Source
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Hands down, the ukers are leading the race for stupid copyright lawsuits.
 
We'll see if the judge there has common sense or not. If it were music at a bar, that's one thing, since music is part of the attraction. But at a car repair shop, customers would bring their cars there with or without the music playing, so it can't be considered as something being done for the shop's profit.
 
Of course, by the litigant's logic, you can take one of those people with the big, loud car stereo that rattles windows for blocks around... and sue that guy for copyright infringement for public performance. that would be interesting.
 
Inkara1 said:
Of course, by the litigant's logic, you can take one of those people with the big, loud car stereo that rattles windows for blocks around... and sue that guy for copyright infringement for public performance. that would be interesting.
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Nah, for the same reason that someone who'll throw paint on a dowager for wearing fur won't do the same to a biker wearing leather.
 
The Scots are a law unto themselves... besides being totally barmy of course... so don't lump us sassanachs in with them. :p
 
This is asinine. I can only speak to US copyright laws, and according to that the radio station has already paid for the broadcast right to play that music. Once that fee has been paid there is no further user royalty due. Broadcast means exactly that...cast out to a broad audience. Radio stations are required by law to chart each song played (some every minute, some for random periods to serve as a sample, depending on the size of the station and its market). Since no one is charging for the additional right to hear a radio being played, this is not a performance. Therefore, the dues are paid by the radio station who recoups that money from advertisers whose messages are also heard. If this goes through, then the twisted logic dictates that every listener to a radio station could then charge the advertisers a fee for having heard their spots.

On a somewhat related note, I recently read an interview with Gene Simmons. He opined that the music industry is now dead. Among his reasons for saying that were the decline of "free" radio, the accessibility of music downloads with no royalty being paid to the author of the song, and the slow demise of a viable club scene wherein musicians can be paid for their craft via performance. I myself have stated on this board somewhere that when the local club scene dies out, the music industry will go with it. Think about it. You're a novice musician, and maybe a damn good one. But no label will sign you because you are unknown. How do you build a "buzz"? You play clubs and work your ass off to get noticed. It may take years; it may never happen. But the fortunate among the talented do make it. They get signed. Then the rules change completely...you are pwned by the label. They dictate who plays with you, what songs you record, how they sound, when and where they are released, how much money is spent to promote your album...all of it. You make a measley 7% of album sales...AFTER and ONLY after the label recoups every dime spent on you. Plus you get to pay a publisher (50% off the top, standard, non-negotiable) a manager, a lawyer, tour personnel, maybe even your "bandmates" (Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were the only members of Bon Jovi ever signed to a label...the rest of the band was hired help paid by those two). You cannot play anywhere without the label's blessing. You dictate nothing about your own career, how it is promoted, when the next album if there is one is done...nothing.

You'll stay at around 7% until you prove yourself...to businessmen. Then you might be able to negotiate a better deal on your fourth release...and how many artists get a fourth release these days? Maybe 1% of the musical acts you hear and love make any money to speak of. Ask MC Hammer...those advances can bite you in a heartbeat.

Take Creed for another example. Major smash hit with their second release. And how long again was it until the third? Why? Legal disputes. The label had them by the short hairs, and by the time their follow up was out all momentum had been lost. There wasn't a fourth, now was there? So who made the money off that huge CD? Now you know.

KISS did one thing that was brilliant. They managed to negotiate a huge percentage of their own live performance and merchandising income for themselves. The labels in those days didn't realize the potential for a band willing to tour for fifteen months straight, recording new material as they went on off days, and play six nights a week to sellout arena crowds. And merchandising? What was that? Led Zeppelin didn't HAVE a lunchbox. Bob Dylan never sold that many tour shirts. CSNY didn't have a pinball machine. Nobody offered to print a comic book featuring The Eagles. So KISS made a killing, and when it was time to renegotiate, Alive! had just set the world on fire and every label on earth wanted KISS. 8.5%? I don't think so, pal...try 14%. And we keep all our previous perks. Next negotiation? 17%. Before you know it, they're multi-millionaires. And the live concert experience would never be the same again, because everybody else from Joan Baez to Bob Seger saw what happened. Sitting on a stool in a spotlight strumming anti-war ballads wasn't gonna cut it anymore. The audience expected more, because KISS did more.

So taken from the mouth of one of the people who truly made a living in the record business, I'd tend to think he might know what he's talking about. And if he (and I) are right, you can expect nothing from record labels besides clones of Mariah Carey or whoever last made a hit. The real music will be stifled, because all the clubs have DJs now instead of live bands because A) they're cheaper and B) nobody knows how to play live anymore and C) the label has to pay out less for the CD being played than if a live performer actually picks up a guitar. The hitmakers won't be resigned. Why should they? There's 762 clones just like 'em standing in line to record the next one...at 7%. Creativity no longer matters. If they were new artists today, you better believe that Meat Loaf (too fat), Sex Pistols (too much trouble), Madonna (too many just like her), or Van Halen (not trendy enough) would never be heard from. But praise Jaisus for Ashlee Simpson, huh?

Think about it, folks. I mean, REALLY think about it. Already we complain about the limited variety of contemporary music. A handful of twats from Berkeley with cheesy fake British accents call themselves Green Day and "become" punk rock...and the next 296 bands signed sound just like 'em. Think that happens by accident do you? Meanwhile, how many other bands toil in anonymity because they refuse to sell their creativity? Oh sure, one or two get signed...just in case...but remember Nirvana? How fresh and original they sounded? Then three months later, we got STP and Soundgarden and Pearl friggin' Jam and Alice In Chains and 417 others until it all sounded the same again and it died. And believe me, as a lifelong collector, nobody collects the trendy stuff, UNLESS they get it all. Wanna sell that Air Supply CD? Give ya a buck for it. Try replacing my debut CD from D'Molls (so glam they made Poison look masculine) for under $60. Johnny Crash or Spread Eagle or Smashed Gladys? Try even finding it. But those and hundreds of others were out at the same time you were listening to Motley Crue and Ratt and Skid Row (all fine bands, don't get me wrong). And they were better than Ratt and Crue and Poison and Warrant (hell, who WASN'T better than Warrant?)

So let's all drive another nail in the coffin of good music (no matter what your taste might be) if this lawsuit is successful. Lenny Kravitz really was right...Rock And Roll IS Dead.
 
On a related tangent to my rant above...

Heard a blip on the radio this morning that Toby Keith has his own record label now. Toby. Friggin. Keith. He's been around for...10 years? Now he has his own label and is signing other artists to that label.

Who knew Toby Keith had a brain? He'll make his 13% from whatever label he's on until that contract is up, and keep making it from them for his lifetime on the catalog hits he had for them, PLUS he'll make the label's share from every act he signs to his label...and on his own recordings he cleans up from both ends. If he's smart enough to start his own publishing company (most rock acts did; few country acts do because of the inherent differences in how those two genres are recorded...long story, just f'ing trust me on it, K?) then he saves 50% right off the top in addition to all that other stuff.

Hell, he don't even LOOK smart...
 
Too bad you can't counter-sue someone for being an annoying twit...for exactly one dollar more than they're suing you. :devious:
 
Depends how loud they were playing it... we have laws about noise nuisance over here. Dunno why they didn't just confiscate the equipment.
 
Aunty Em said:
Depends how loud they were playing it... we have laws about noise nuisance over here. Dunno why they didn't just confiscate the equipment.
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That I can understand and would be reasonable to a certain extent. But they weren't sued because of that, they were sued for copyright infringement.
 
Luis G said:
That I can understand and would be reasonable to a certain extent. But they weren't sued because of that, they were sued for copyright infringement.
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If they were playing it loud enough then it probably became a public performance... an unlicenced one, hence copywrite infringement.

I would expect that they were warned several times before being prosecuted. The laws over here covering the playing radios and sterios in public recently changed due to antisocial behaviour of people who persist in playing their radios and sterios so loudly and that it rattles their neighours windows. They usually confiscate the offending equipment. They only prosecute if the offender refuses to stop being a nuisance.
 
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