UK Copyright holder Getting Creative In Quest For Royalties

[DaBees-Knees]

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9985/UK+Copyright+Holder+Getting+Creative+in+Quest+for+Royalties

Searching for any place where more than one person may hear music at a time, be it a kicthen, office, or school play. The UK Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS), a copyright holder group that collects royalty payments for songwriters and composers, is going after workplaces where anybody other than the one listening to a radio can hear it. “If anybody else can hear your radio it will count as a performance and you will have to pay us for a licence,” said a rep from the PRS in a telephone conversation with Dick Robson, who runs a water purification firm in Linton, Kent. The aggressive tactics are raising the eyebrows of members of the UK Parliament who see it as nothing more than an attempt to fight dwindling CD sales on the backs of average citizens who may not even need to the licenses, but are pressured into obtaining them for fear of expensive litigation. Said Robson: “There is usually only me here and I like to have nice relaxing music. The woman said she could hear music in the background. I thought, ‘My God, you’ve got good ears.’ She asked how many of us were here listening. I said me and sometimes the dog. Eventually, after I made a fuss, they apologized and said I would not be bothered again.” Another person targeted, John Collins, 57, runs a software company from home and received similar demands via a letter. “If my wife Susan brings me a cup of tea and hears the music then I might be liable,” he said. “It’s a blunderbuss approach trying to terrify people that they need a licence. It’s a double bubble because the musicians are already getting royalties from the sale of the CD or from plays on the radio. They are just trying to rake in money for a failing industry.”

The most distressing case is that of a charity named Dam House which was informed it would need two separate licenses, the first for a yearly schoolgirls’ visit when they sing carols in its tearoom, and the second for for kitchen staff who play music while preparing food. “At first they demanded £450 ($540 USD)," said trustee Margaret Hatton. "We eventually got it reduced [to] about a quarter of that, but they are bulldogs. We could not get it through to them that we are a charity run by volunteers.”

The whole affair makes clear that copyright laws are in desperate need of reform in the UK. 

This shows just how sick those at the top of the music industry can be and they wonder why we have no respect for them.

[White Stripes]

W....T....F....


then again i think its odd that radios and TVs are taxed in the uk in the first place...

[GhostShip]

We used to have to have a radio licence but that died many many years ago, the tv licence however is there purely to ensure the government has its pet propaganda station ready to serve up its messages without question, of course operating it themselves would cost a few bob so they created a "licence" to ensure we have to pay whether we watch their station or not.

In the past the bbc stood firm on many issues and fought hard to stay out of any controversial government activities but as of late their commercial interests have caused many red faces at the bbc and the introduction of an obvious bias against filesharers who they see as taking "their" material, what seems to elude them is the fact the UK populace has already paid for that material, just like the with recording industry folks are asked to pay again and again for something they in fact already own the rights to, how pathetic and greedy, but hey thats big media business's for you.