Slovak Collection Society Tells High School Students To Pay Up For Music At Graduation Parties

from the they-have-no-concept dept

We recently covered a new report highlighting the parade of horror stories from "copyright collection organizations" or "collective rights organizations" around the globe. We've got one to add to the list. The Slovak Performing and Mechanical Rights Society (SOZA) put up a blog post telling high school students to register and to pay up for music played at their graduation parties. And this is hardly the first time we've heard about SOZA and its universally nutty plans to squeeze more money out of more places where people listen to music. Showing a near complete lack of self-awareness as to how the blog post would be received, it included this hilarious line:

A license for €15 for the whole event isn't going to ruin any graduation party.

Nor will SOZA not getting €15 for some high school kids having a graduation party ruin its operations. Thankfully, the Slovakian Ministry of Culture pointed out how ridiculous this was:

The Ministry of Culture appealed to SOZA, insisting that student graduation parties were for parents and teachers and could not be considered public events - hence, there was no reason for SOZA to introduce a fee for them.

Recognizing that even the government was against it on this one, SOZA backed down, while still petulantly insisting that legally it had done nothing wrong.

What's interesting here, however, is that it's yet another misstep by a copyright organization that's leading to even less respect for copyright, and increasing pressure to change copyright laws to avoid this kind of ridiculousness. Global Voices (link above) lists out a few examples of people speaking up and becoming activists over this issue:

Martin Královic thought [sk] it would be a good idea to register Christmas of 2012, his 50th birthday celebration (in 2038) and his own funeral with SOZA.

Martin Huba asked [sk] about the whereabouts of the money paid by clubs where he gave concerts with his band: as an author, he has been filling SOZA forms, providing an address to which this money should have been sent.

Badatel.sk thought [sk] that strict application of the laws was the best way to deal with SOZA. Using the Ministry of Culture's graduation party statement as a precedent, restaurants paying to SOZA for public music could declare themselves private clubs (with low entrance fees, though). Concert organizers and others could do the same.

In the end, this resulted in a rally at the Ministry of Culture, with them asking the government to cancel SOZA's collection license.

What amazes me is that the people at these organizations are so myopic that they don't realize the backlash to these kinds of actions. They're doing more harm to their position than good. Whenever we see stories like this, it just makes people think less and less of copyright.

Filed Under: collection society, graduation parties
Companies: soza