This is utter nonsense.
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.
― Herman G. Neuname, Friday, 5 October 2007 15:02 (seventeen years ago)
one year passes...
This is the most appropriate thread I could find for this:
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing entitled "The Performance Rights Act and Parity among Music Delivery Platforms" on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 2:30 p.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building.
You can watch it live right now here:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=4011
― Kevin John Bozelka, Tuesday, 4 August 2009 20:59 (sixteen years ago)
eight months pass...
SoundExchange Announces $51.7 million in Q1 payments to artists, labels
Indie labels claim largest share to date of funds earned from digital music
Washington, DC - SoundExchange, the non-profit performance rights organization appointed by Congress to pay digital royalties to recording artists and sound recording copyright holders, announced today that it has begun sending out checks in its largest-ever quarterly distribution. A total of $51.7 million in royalties from digital transmissions, including Internet radio, satellite radio, and cable TV music channels, are on their way to recording artists and copyright holders. The unprecedented amount represents a 135% increase over first quarter payments last year, and surpasses the previous record distribution by nearly $10 million.
"This was the result of a lot of hard work by our staff, and also represents a new commitment by our registrants to help increase these amounts," said SoundExchange's Executive Director John Simson. "In addition to our usual distribution amounts, this total includes millions of dollars which were freed up by our commitment to cleaning up the bad data which is often reported to us by services."
Simson has spoken publicly about the challenge posed by poor reporting by the digital services which use sound recordings. During this quarter, however, SoundExchange staff have worked with registrants to resolve thousands of entries reported as "label unknown" or attributed incorrectly, by encouraging owners and artists to claim the tracks individually. SoundExchange staff also put in many man-hours of research to correct data so that funds could be distributed properly.
The independent label community received its largest-ever portion of digital revenues this quarter. Many individual recipients received their largest checks to date.
"In this time of shrinking revenues from so many other sources, our SoundExchange income was large enough to have paid the production costs of a new album and more," said Bruce Iglauer, owner/operator of Alligator Records, "Absolutely every label and every recording artist should be a member. It's simply all positives and no negatives."
Simson also credited his organization's outreach to artists who had not previously received royalties with a portion of the growth. When artists and copyright holders register with SoundExchange, they receive lump sums of the royalties they have accrued since 1996. A flood of new registrations, fueled by SoundExchange's ramped-up awareness efforts in mid-2009, meant lots of those checks were issued in Q1.
"We're extremely proud of what we do here," Simson said of the quarter's achievements, "It's a challenge and a privilege to be a part of the process that sees the creators of music fairly paid for their invaluable work."
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About SoundExchange: SoundExchange is the non-profit performance rights organization that collects statutory royalties from satellite radio, internet radio, cable TV music channels and other services that stream sound recordings. The Copyright Royalty Board, created by Congress, has entrusted SoundExchange as the only entity in the United States to collect and distribute these digital performance royalties for featured recording artists and master rights owners. SoundExchange currently represents over 5,500 record labels, over 45,000 featured artists, and has paid out more than $412 million in royalties since its creation in 2003. www.SoundExchange.com
― Kevin John Bozelka, Friday, 9 April 2010 16:48 (fifteen years ago)