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.
jared@zeropaid.com
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They really know how to win people over.
You think that it’s only in the U.K.?
Get this: during the inauguration of President Obama a number of people were stuck in a tunnel and couldn’t get to the mall to hear Obama’s speech. Stuck with them was a famous folk singer (I won’t mention his name; that’s irrelevant.) Since they were stuck someone suggested that they sing one of his songs to pass the time.
He said that he couldn’t because of copyright. One of the terms of his recording contract states that he cannot sing to more than one person (other than himself I would assume) without the record company’s collecting royalties. The man can’t even sing his own songs!
Really that is absurd! Copyright has gone berserk.