New Zealand Hairdresser Gets Bill For Playing Music In Her Shop
from the public-performances... dept
For years, we've questioned why it makes sense for various songwriters' collection societies to charge a license fee for playing music in various restaurants and shops. In the past, most of the focus on enforcement has been in restaurants and bars, where music is more central to the experience -- but even then, it's always seemed like the music helps draw more interest in people going out and actually paying that musician for something. It's promotional. However, in the past few years, collections groups have become a lot more aggressive. From going after auto repair shops because their mechanics listened to radios in the garage that customers could hear in the waiting room (public performance!) to police stations where cops listened to music too loud (public performance!), these rights societies consistently seem to be shooting themselves in their collective feet.The latest, sent in by Lawrence D'Oliveiro, involves a hairdresser in New Zealand who had the temerity to have a radio playing in her shop (public performance!). Of course, the real solution to this isn't to pay, but to stop playing music. Music is not central to the hairdressing process, though, by not playing music, the shop would certainly seem a lot less welcoming. Either way, the whole thing seems backwards. If they're playing the music off the radio, then it's been licensed already, and if it's off a personal CD or MP3 player, it's been paid for in other ways.
We're still waiting for the day when one of these collections societies goes after someone playing music in their car with the top or windows down (public performance!) or maybe someone on a beach with a radio (public performance!). Perhaps what they really want is for everyone to do everything with their own personal music players and earphones jacked in. There should be no sharing or promoting of music whatsoever without a special license.
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Filed Under: collection society, music, new zealand, royalties
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Re: singers versus songwriters - just what is a royalty for?
"Singwriters" got paid for their performance. "SONGwriters get the royalties, or part of it, according to contract. THAT'S what this is all about - the owner of the copyright wants a royalty for each public performance beyond the sale of the performance medium, that is, they want to get paid for the CD sale, then also get paid for anyone additionally listening to that CD.
Cool or what? I wanna be a songwriter!
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*sigh*
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Buh?
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Re: Buh?
Still seems like double-dipping to me.
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Re: Re: Buh?
I think the caveat here is that customers are paying money for goods/services. The owner is profiting. The music is part of the experience and therefor a value add.
I agree it is stupid. It is unfortunate to say the least.
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where is this going?
I believe this doesn't going nearly far enough. It's clear that you don't actually buy the experience of listening to a song or watching a film. As a sort of "virtual rental property" then, the only fair solution is to scrub the memory of media from the human brain itself. Big Media might be generous enough to allow its audiences to retain some memory of the experience, but such misguided generosity might lead to less than maximum profit. After all, if a person realizes he's seen a film before, he might not want to see it again.
And fortunately for the noble concept of Intellectual Property, medical technology has even provided a drug that can accomplish such a selective memory wipe: http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070305/full/news070305-17.html
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Pay for Radio?
Are royalties not paid by the radio station to broadcast the song in the first place? Are these collection agencies not trying to get paid twice for the same thing?
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Re: Pay for Radio?
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Re: Pay for Radio?
Yes, and yes. Getting paid twice is the bare minimum they seek -- they would really like to get paid each and every time you listen. I'm surprised they don't charge per speaker, so that if you listen in mono you pay one price, stereo another price, and if you have wireless speakers on your patio, you pay yet again. You shouldn't be able to listen to the same song in your basement and your patio at the same time, because you can't be in both places at the same time. Thus, you should pay once per location. Or twice, if you have stereo speakers. If you have quadraphonic sound, you should pay four times.
You can fight back by not buying music, except at garage sales or second-hand shops.
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The real solution
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big deal?
i will concede that it's ironic the collection agencies spend so much time on this stuff, while up here in canada, TV commercials aren't forced to sign up with SOCAN. so for instance, my music gets played every week and i don't see a penny because these particular gigs i took on just paid me up front. it's frustrating to say the least.
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Re: big deal?
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Re: big deal?
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Re: big deal?
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Music
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Why is it absurd to get a captive audience AND get paid for it? They must be calculating that most shops will pay the royalties, so it becomes a benefit even if they lose a bit of advertising...
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Music
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Just a suggestion...
It only makes sense. At some point in their lives, almost every single American has intentionally or unintentionally broken the law by hearing music which they did not pay for; much of it through radio stations. For years, they've been hearing music for free, so it only makes sense to pass the cost along to them.
Hey, here in Canada the music industry puts a fee on every recordable CD sold. How long before a fee is added to every device which can emit music? Someone must be breaking the law, right? Best to cast a wide net.
*sigh*
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Hmmm... This give me an idea
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Don't they get paid by increased ad revenue?
There is a business model that allows businesses to pipe in commercial-free music as well as models that allow them to inject their own ads or receive ad revenue from the piped in music. However, small shops are not willing to pay under those models. They perceive radio music as free. Most businesses that play radio music would simply turn off the music, not pay. That will reduce radio ad revenue which will in turn reduce royalty payments to the music industry. A few businesses might switch to a paid system, but with the economy tightening small businesses are generally not going to be willing to take on an additional expense.
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I don't buy it!
Oh, I wonder why public establishments don't collect and play music licensed under Creative Commons. Someone, maybe me, could put together several mixes of elevator-quality CC music into a collection that can be downloaded and put on a CD or digital player.
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It seems to me the solution is...
In fact, you could setup a consortium of some sort locally to fight this. Like creative commons on a much smaller local level. And you could cross sell by asking the shop to stock a couple CD's to sell to people who ask.
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I would honestly just let them take me to court over something as stupid as this, and let the judge laugh them out. I think they would settle (or attempt to) because once a judge says you cant do that noone else would pay.
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France
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Re: France
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I hate how "Imaginary property" proponents like to claim that digital music is somehow a tangible good, but they pull stunts like this. If I buy a table, should I have to pay the maker if I want to have guests over for a dinner party?(public performance!) Can't have it both ways.
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Wait a minute...
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Imagine that. Get paid once for doing the work once. I too live in Canada, and work as a lifeguard. Perhaps if I save someone's life, I should get paid for every day they are alive afterwards. Sure I got paid for the work I did that day, but after all, they wouldn't be here if it weren't for me. You said it brother: it is frustrating to not get paid multiple times for the same work.
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Store Owner vs Collection Agency
We are going to need to you pay us for this public performance you are putting on.
Store Owner:
Public performance? Do you see me sitting here cutting people's hair, or do you see me with an amp and guitar playing music for people with the radio as backup.
CA:
You appear to be cutting hair.
SO:
Then go fuck yourself.
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i got a rise!
You never know: i hear you, but the hairdresser isn't a regular member of the public. that's the corporate sector. you're right though that the public ends up paying because when hit with more bills, the owner of the business is likely to pass that on with slightly higher prices.
lickity split and jesse: i'm merely commenting on how SOCAN has it all wrong in Canada when they spend so much time policing pop radio, yet aren't looking out for indie composers.
i dont think you can compare lifeguarding in one location to music that gets re-exploited across the country on a variety of television networks. the royalty streams are clearly there for a reason - the biggest is because the people who commissioned the ads don't have to pay more money than is necessary if their ad isn't going to get used often.
anyways it's a little off-topic i'm sorry for bringing my own annoyances here.
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You call it exploiting, but I ask...what new work have you done? You are asking to be paid again and again, because somebody is 'exploiting' the fruits of your labor.
What is frustrating about royalties is that even if it made sense, there is no consideration being made regarding the free publicity the artist receives. This situation with the hairdresser: it's as if a clothing company sells t-shirts with their logo, and when the buyer walks around, freely advertising their product, the t-shirt company asks for performance royalties. I'm sorry, but you've already been paid once and now I am freely advertising your product.
We all want to get paid multiple times for our work, but the "imaginary property" guys have actually found a way to make it happen. Maybe the rest of us are just jealous.
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Re:
I wonder if the hairdresser could demand a cut of the ad revenue for the station. Seems like the knife should cut both ways.
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but the reality is when dealing with many forms of art is that the person is paid nothing upon creation of the work and therefore the royalties help renumerate the work as it plays its course in the world.
sometimes you can get an advance which is basically a loan against any future royalties, so you're still technically not paid anything.
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Create Your Own "Association"
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Re: Create Your Own "Association"
Does this mean that anyone can declare themselves as a bounty hunter for collecting fees on behalf of the copyright holders???? Great opportunity for self-employment!!
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"Social acquaintances" Don't we all socialize when we meet one another ? We are all one big family, right ?
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People are listening to music while they work to make the worktime a little more pleasant. Not to profit from it. They're not selling tickets to the waiting room of the auto repair shop or the hair salon. This is just greedy people looking to squeeze every last cent from the public. Don't you think that if the salon owner has to pay a fee to play music that they're just going to eat the cost? Of course not! They'll raise the price of their services to pay for the licensing fee.
It's about as silly as the deaf asking for a refund from the recording industry for all the music that they will never listen to.
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A better way
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Re: A better way
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What about the law in the USA
What are the laws here? If I play the local radio station in my bookstore (Which the local radio station encourages!) or play samples of CDs or videos that I'm selling (Which the distributor encourages!), am I breaking any licensing agreements, or laws? Am I opening myself up to potential law suits here in the USA?
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However, assuming a case where an artist is not paid at all; that brings up a tricky point. If you do work that nobody requests in the first place, then what should the compensation (if any) look like? So if I write and record a song, should I ask somebody to pay for it later? I am not against the idea of an artist being compensated for work, but there are a few dynamics that are worth discussing.
First of all, if the artist is producing music as a hobby, then how does that work?...I'm sure most people would love to get paid for their hobbies, but the world does not work that way. Secondly, when does the compensation stop? Why should an artist be compensated well past a fair hourly rate of the time put in to producing that content. If an artist produces a song, but then a record label puts in a lot of ongoing work to market it and increase the fanbase, then isn't it the artist freeloading off of the work of the label instead of the other way around?
Again, just because somebody finds some benefit from your work does not mean you are necessarily entitled to a cut of that benefit. This is not a zero sum game; just because somebody else benefits, that does not mean you lose. In fact, in your example with the commercial, both parties are benefiting, it's just that you have the perception that the other party is benefiting more than you. You see that as being unfair, even though you are both better off than if the commercial did not take place, or if they had used someone else's music.
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Big Brother: the whole advertising industry works on a system of "impressions". ad space is priced according to how many people it will hit. if companies are paying more to run their ads more times and to hit more people, then why in some cases does that increased revenue generated on the project not get passed on to certain people?
i don't know how much more time i can spend here, you guys are quite clever and find any loophole in an argument you can see. i've seen this on almost every blog post on this site and i sort of admire the dedication that you guys have in playing devil's advocate all day long.
it was my choice to waive my rights for a one-off, but SOCAN is asleep at the wheel up here because the agencies shouldn't have this option- and i'm not alone on this issue. i believe the States has it right though.
i'm not a master at royalties in television, but clearly there is a reason for it if there are so many performing rights agencies operating around the world. if there wasn't a need for it, then no TV producer would use the service. they would say, "why do i need to pay this crap"? but for some reason the ads are off the hook.
maybe because they are seen as a break from normal programming and everyone's busy stuffing their face while they're on hehe
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Gravedigger Is Digging His Own Grave
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If only it was just the radio...
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Not new...
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make their own music?
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But, but...
It took 100s of years to own property. And blood was spilled to make room for beauty too. Nowadays are we saying, "If you feed me I'll pay you, but happiness I'll steal"?
Art won't feed us nor clothe us, but what do we do to treat it well? We're in an age of terrific flux.
Marketers may have took too much and we resent it. Somehow we must fix bullies and corruption. But I think it's damn important to make sure there's money in the hat when we enjoy a product.
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The article with the hairdresser is an awful example to pick: the artist was already paid when the radio station licensed the music. Would it be different if everyone in the hair salon had their own personal radio? I bet the hairdresser would do well to respond by having a separate (cheap) radio for every individual in the joint, then at least you could argue that the music was appropriately "licensed." That is, unless you want individuals to pay for a license to listen to radio.
What it seems you are advocating, sir, is that artists be paid multiple times for their work. If you want to pay fellow artists everytime you listen to a song, then by all means do, but don't expect the rest of us to.
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Recordings do not perform
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Well then...
The chief of Sony said to Charlie Rose recently that no one will put up $200mil for a movie production if no one needs to buy a ticket because production will disappear soon unless there's a solution to compensation. He said the current music biz is a mess and it's scaring investors to the core. A "performance" isn't always as cheap as a guy and a microphone
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Listening fee depends. Restaurants 15 - 300 €/month, hotels 9- 211 €/month, shops 13+ €/month, taxi 32 €/ year...
http://www.teosto.fi/fi/taustamusiikki.html
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A different America
Malls, shops, hairdressers, retirement homes, taxis, banks, bars, restaurants, schools, landlords with elevators, casino and church and government, factories and farmer's markets put little in the pot while peanuts reach most artists. A handful siphon millions. Consumers are sued without a receipt.
This is a huge issue that won't end until it's fair.
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Public (as in EVERYBODY) Radio has been played & listened to since long before any drm, tv bs, ipod crap was even thought of. Guess what? Radios were made portable decades ago.
This is like charging for air waves based upon the location you stand. Apparently they consider that a business is not allowed free ota radio broadcast.
I own the radio and the right to stand where I stand and so you can now GFYcollectiveSelves.
Next they will require all radios to have a super sensitive gps so that it will only play at locations that were PREpaid for. I'll run right out for that one for sure.
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And the judge says:
I hope the hairdresser back-billed the advertisers that got additional audience from the radio air-play to collect the requisite monies to pay the bill for public performance! ;-)
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pay for listening?
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fined for playing music?
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If you are a shop owner - you can play whatever you want - radio, tv, CDs, etc - for a fixed royalty rate. These royalties are not a tax - they are distributed to songwriters and their publishers.
Public performance fees are in force in EU and the other world as well. I don`t see what the fuss is about.
You know how the copyright was born? In a cafe called Ambassadeurs in France, when a composer stopped playing his songs for free and demanded a meal in return for his works.
The author of this article is ignorant of the very basic legal issues as regards copyright. Please contact your local copyright society for more info. AND - if a shop gets more customers because of music - why the songwriters should not be paid for their work?
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