In message , Hugh Jampton
writes
On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:46:37 +0000, geoff wrote:

Have any other businesses on here been bombarded over the past months by
the PRS to get them to fork out for a licence ?

Doesn't affect me but I do remember reading about this in the Times :-

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....ainment/music/
article5581353.ece

I like

€œOver 90% of our members earn less than £5,000 per annum ...,€� it said.

Yeah - possibly because their music is ****e

--
geoff

In message , Tim S
writes
OG coughed up some electrons that declared:


"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , geoff
scribeth thus


Have any other businesses on here been bombarded over the past months by
the PRS to get them to fork out for a licence ?



Yes they seem to be on a mission!..

We told 'em to sod off as we don't have the public in here anyway!..

'We' means that there's more than one of you, so you need a PRS licence.

According to the PRS.

I fail to see how a few people listening to a common radio constitutes
a "performance", especially given the radio station has already paid to
broadcast the music.

Could do with a few more people telling them to sod off - it is a completely
ridiculous notion.

you should know me better than that by now

"sod" was not the word I used




--
geoff

Tim S wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) coughed up some electrons that declared:

In article ,
nightjar cpb@insert my surname here.me.uk wrote:

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
...
I fail to see how a few people listening to a common radio constitutes
a "performance", especially given the radio station has already paid to
broadcast the music....

Irrespective of what you may think, that is what the law says.

Indeed. Presumably these firms are using radio to give them a benefit of
some sort - so why should they get it for free?


Because BBC Radion doesn't need a license to listen


Not for private and personal use, no. But for re-broadcasting copyright
music to others, yes.


and commercial radio is
paid for by adverts - more listeners = more people listening to ads???


Yes, commercial radio is paid for by advertising. BBC Radio is paid for
out of the TV Licence fee*. That covers private and personal use, but
for re-broadcasting copyright music to others, yes, you have to pay.

Presumably you think re-broadcasting copyright music should be free, in
the same way that iTunes and other music download sites are free ...?

Presumably you see nothing wrong in copying MP3 files without payment?


*The reason there isn't a separate radio licence is that the cost of
collecting a small sum of money would be disproportionately high.

nightjar cpb@ wrote:

Garages are required to have a licence if they listen to a customer's radio
to do any work on it for them, so almost certainly, yes.

Which is odd when you think that there is an exclusion the TV license
regs regarding repair facilities that only need to receive to check the
functioning of the kit.

What about in workshops that have many engineers working in them ?

The company would be required to declare how many engineers and for how
long, on average, they would be listening to the music each day. The
alternative, mentioned elsewhere, would be to buy royalty-free music for the
purpose.

and a license to broadcast it so that you can verify the RF front end of
the radio no doubt! ;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:28:48 -0800 (PST), mike wrote:

On Feb 25, 10:49*pm, "OG" wrote:

'We' means that there's more than one of you, so you need a PRS licence.

So what happens if two people are listening to two radios - either
tuned to the same or different stations?

And why don't the PRS go after those buggers on the train who play
their Walkmans/iPods loud enough for other people to hear?

It just shows what a load of cobblers it is - if half a dozen people can
hear a radio in a garage, they must pay for a license, but if the same half
a dozen people are all listening to the same broadcast on separate radios
with earphones that's okay ... for god sake it's a radio broadcast that
anyone can freely listen to, does it really matter who's radio they listen
on?

SteveW

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:


Yes, commercial radio is paid for by advertising. BBC Radio is paid for
out of the TV Licence fee*. That covers private and personal use, but
for re-broadcasting copyright music to others, yes, you have to pay.

Presumably you think re-broadcasting copyright music should be free, in
the same way that iTunes and other music download sites are free ...?

Presumably you see nothing wrong in copying MP3 files without payment?


Sorry, that is ********.

We are not talking about re-producing a song as part of a concert with
hundreds of fee paying punters. We are considering a situation where
someone, who happens to be at work, is playing the radio for their own
benefit and possibly for a few colleagues.

Anyone overhearing, including those colleagues could easily have their own
personal radios tuned to the same station - it would make no difference to
the economics.

As I said - the whole thing is a scam, and a twisted scam at that. Everyone
managed quite happily for the last several decades - why do things
differently now?

Tim S wrote:

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:


Yes, commercial radio is paid for by advertising. BBC Radio is paid for
out of the TV Licence fee*. That covers private and personal use, but
for re-broadcasting copyright music to others, yes, you have to pay.

Presumably you think re-broadcasting copyright music should be free, in
the same way that iTunes and other music download sites are free ...?

Presumably you see nothing wrong in copying MP3 files without payment?


Sorry, that is ********.


OK, you can have the last word: "********", I think it was.

Steve Walker wrote:

for god sake it's a radio broadcast that
anyone can freely listen to, does it really matter who's radio they listen
on?


But it *isn't* a radio broadcast that anyone can freely listen to !!

That's the whole point.

"Bruce" wrote in message
...

and commercial radio is
paid for by adverts - more listeners = more people listening to ads???


Yes, commercial radio is paid for by advertising. BBC Radio is paid for
out of the TV Licence fee*. That covers private and personal use, but
for re-broadcasting copyright music to others, yes, you have to pay.

Thing is, I'm imagining a situation where each employee in a workshop has
their own walkman/radio/ipod with headphones/equivalent. That's legal
according to PRS, even if they're all listening to the same radio station.
Yet replace that with a single radio with a loudspeaker, and it suddenly
becomes a chargeable event.

Broadly speaking, I feel that once something is broadcast free-to-air, it
should be available to anybody at that time. So eg recording the radio and
selling on or rebroadcasting later in public may well be out - but listening
at the time should be open to all. And yes, that does mean a nightclub using
a radio station as soundtrack would be reasonable - how the radio station is
charged for that is the PRS's problem.

TV licence fees cover the provision of TV apparatus. I do wonder about use
in eg a pub - the majority of visitors will already have a TV licence, so
asking the pub to pay extra for a special commercial licence seems
potentially unreasonable. (Stuff like sky is a separate issue - that's their
problem)

Now whether or not the law agrees with me is a different question - but if
it doesn't, I reckon it's wrong.

Presumably you think re-broadcasting copyright music should be free, in
the same way that iTunes and other music download sites are free ...?

Presumably you see nothing wrong in copying MP3 files without payment?

Nice non-sequitur there. How about not resorting to irrelevant examples?

"Clive George" wrote:

Thing is, I'm imagining a situation where each employee in a workshop has
their own walkman/radio/ipod with headphones/equivalent. That's legal
according to PRS, even if they're all listening to the same radio station.
Yet replace that with a single radio with a loudspeaker, and it suddenly
becomes a chargeable event.


Yes, that's correct. You have gone from personal use, which is funded
via the TV licence fee, to re-broadcasting, which needs a paid-for
licence from PRS.

Open and shut case, M'Lud.

Earlier in the thread, someone asked if the money raised by PRS actually
went back to the artists and copyright holders. Indeed it does; the PRS
has for many years employed a network of people who listen to the radio
and TV (while doing other things) and note down which songs are played
and who sang them. Different rates are payable depending on how much of
the song is played - for example an advert that samples a song doesn't
pay anywhere near the full whack.

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:10:49 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Earlier in the thread, someone asked if the money raised by PRS actually
went back to the artists and copyright holders. Indeed it does; the PRS
has for many years employed a network of people who listen to the radio
and TV (while doing other things) and note down which songs are played
and who sang them.

PRS are "not for profit", but as many have found when dealing with
such businesses that doesn't mean they are charities or that they
don't pay their staff, especially senior ones, most handsomely. Is
anyone aware of what proportion of the fees they collect goes to the
performers and what goes into their own pockets?

Of that proportion which goes to performers I wonder how much goes to
those performers earning less than say £1M per year before PRS paid
to them? I suspect it is a trivial amount and that the major purpose
of the PRS is to keep snouts firmly in troughs.

On Feb 26, 9:38*pm, Bruce wrote:

But it *isn't* a radio broadcast that anyone can freely listen to !!

That's the whole point.

Surely the whole point is that it *is* a radio broadcast that anyone
can freely listen but for the purposes of milking some money from
people, we're constructing a legal pretence that it's not.

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
nightjar coughed up some electrons that declared:


"Tim S" wrote in message
...
...
I fail to see how a few people listening to a common radio constitutes
a "performance", especially given the radio station has already paid to
broadcast the music....

Irrespective of what you may think, that is what the law says.

Colin Bignell

Given we never heard of this nonsense 10 years back AFAIK, does that mean
the law changed, or has there merely been an "interpretation" made
recently?

The PRS was formed in 1914. I suspect that the dramatic drop in record sales
in recent years means that performers depend more on revenue from PRS
licences than they used to, resulting in more active enforcement of the law.

Colin Bignell

Peter Parry wrote:

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:10:49 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Earlier in the thread, someone asked if the money raised by PRS actually
went back to the artists and copyright holders. Indeed it does; the PRS
has for many years employed a network of people who listen to the radio
and TV (while doing other things) and note down which songs are played
and who sang them.

PRS are "not for profit", but as many have found when dealing with
such businesses that doesn't mean they are charities or that they
don't pay their staff, especially senior ones, most handsomely. Is
anyone aware of what proportion of the fees they collect goes to the
performers and what goes into their own pockets?

Of that proportion which goes to performers I wonder how much goes to
those performers earning less than say £1M per year before PRS paid
to them? I suspect it is a trivial amount and that the major purpose
of the PRS is to keep snouts firmly in troughs.


You can suspect all you like, but musicians I know are very fond of the
PRS and have great respect for the work it does. The principle is that
musicians should not be expected to perform for free, nor should
composers be expected to have their works performed for free.

There has to be a mechanism for extracting due payment and passing it on
to the performers and copyright holders. It is always going to be
complicated. Overall, the PRS does a pretty good job, but it cannot
ever be perfect. I somehow doubt that the financial rewards for being
one of the more senior people at the PRS are anywhere near justifying
the term "snouts in troughs".

I wish, for the sake of musicians and composers, that there was an
equally good way to ensure that proper royalties were paid when music is
sold or copied. It is all too often done free of charge and therefore
illegally, and musicians and composers are being denied the proper
reward for their efforts to entertain. It was bad enough in the days of
vinyl records being copied onto cassette tapes, but the advent of MP3
files means that illegal copying is now rife.

I suspect that all the people spouting here about the "injustice" of
being asked to pay a nominal sum for a re-broadcast licence would be
outraged at being asked to work for nothing. But that's effectively
what they are expecting musicians and composers to do.

These people entertain us and they deserve their rewards just as much as
anyone else.

mike wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:38*pm, Bruce wrote:

But it *isn't* a radio broadcast that anyone can freely listen to !!

That's the whole point.

Surely the whole point is that it *is* a radio broadcast that anyone
can freely listen but for the purposes of milking some money from
people, we're constructing a legal pretence that it's not.


I have already pointed out that radio broadcasts for individual use are
paid for via the TV licence and, in the case of commercial radio, by
advertising.

Perhaps your selective dyslexia led you to overlook that point.

Or, more likely, you are just another chancer who wants something for
nothing.

"Bruce" wrote in message
...

I suspect that all the people spouting here about the "injustice" of
being asked to pay a nominal sum for a re-broadcast licence would be
outraged at being asked to work for nothing. But that's effectively
what they are expecting musicians and composers to do.

Um, that's not true. See the example given to you twice yet dismssed for no
apparent reason - the difference between 10 people listing to radio 2 on
their walkmen vs the same 10 listening to it on a radio with loudspeakers.
Both situations involve the same number of people hearing the same
song/performance at the same time, yet somehow you feel that one justifies
an extra payment.

The radio station has made that performance available to everybody with
access to a radio, and they've made an payment for that. If the calculation
made for that payment is wrong because the estimated number of people is
wrong, then fix that, rather than hounding people for a badly-worded law.

"Clive George" wrote in message
et...
"nightjar .me.uk" cpb@insert my surname here wrote in message
...

"mike" wrote in message
...

But hasn't it already been paid for by the broadcaster?

The broadcaster has paid for the right to transmit the music over the
radio. Their licence fee is calculated upon the expected number of people
who will listen to that transmission. Playing the transmission to others,
execpt for strictly private purposes, is a separate performance of the
work, which increases the number of people listening, and needs its own
licence.

Do the figures for the expected numbers of listeners assume one radio =
one person, or are they more intelligent than that?


I presume they use the audited audience figures.

Colin Bignell

nightjar cpb@ wrote:


The PRS was formed in 1914. I suspect that the dramatic drop in record sales
in recent years means that performers depend more on revenue from PRS
licences than they used to, resulting in more active enforcement of the law.

Colin Bignell

That drop came after the bonuses of format changes and delicate media
over many years. We probably all know of people who replaced vinyl due
to scratches, maybe got cassettes, and then CDs - all of the same
performances. (I know I have several CDs which replaced vinyl I had
already bought.)

Thus the thin years came after the fat. And were all the more obvious
because of the fat years.

--
Rod

Hypothyroidism is a seriously debilitating condition with an insidious
onset.
Although common it frequently goes undiagnosed.
www.thyromind.info www.thyroiduk.org www.altsupportthyroid.org

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:16:57 +0000 someone who may be Bruce
wrote this:-

Because BBC Radion doesn't need a license to listen

Not for private and personal use, no. But for re-broadcasting copyright
music to others, yes.

Re-broadcasting would involve setting up a radio transmitter to
transmit the signals to radios in the workplace, so that line is
void.




--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:27:09 +0000 someone who may be Bruce
wrote this:-

It was bad enough in the days of
vinyl records being copied onto cassette tapes,

At the time the doom-sayers said that home taping was killing music.
If that had been true then music would be dead by now.

I was once given an "illegal" collection of tracks by an artist I
had just found out about. The upshot of that was that I bought two
CDs and I'll probably buy more. The artist has a little money they
would not otherwise have had.

All this "copyright protection" crap has done for me is to stop me
purchasing music. When they remove it, as some shops have done, I'll
consider spending my money again.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

David Hansen coughed up some electrons that declared:

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:27:09 +0000 someone who may be Bruce
wrote this:-

It was bad enough in the days of
vinyl records being copied onto cassette tapes,

At the time the doom-sayers said that home taping was killing music.
If that had been true then music would be dead by now.

I was once given an "illegal" collection of tracks by an artist I
had just found out about. The upshot of that was that I bought two
CDs and I'll probably buy more. The artist has a little money they
would not otherwise have had.

All this "copyright protection" crap has done for me is to stop me
purchasing music. When they remove it, as some shops have done, I'll
consider spending my money again.

Agree. I brought tracks from allofmp3.com, the former dodgey music emporium
from Russia.

The point of my point is I didn't buy from them because they were cheap (due
to them being completely dodgey - if I wanted cheap, I'd just warez it) - I
bought from them because they offered what I wanted as a customer:

Track previews;
Millions of tracks and not just English/American
Ability to buy one track or entire albums;
Ability to choose bitrate and format, with no DRM ********.

I haven't used iTunes (because I don't have an iPod) but I don't imagine
iTunes satisfies all the points above.

I'd have more sympathy with the RIAA/MPAA and their ilk if they stopped
bleating, stopped encouraging ripping customers off, got with the times and
helped to make a move towards sensible internet selling at a sensible
price.

Cheers

Tim

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:27:09 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Peter Parry wrote:

Of that proportion which goes to performers I wonder how much goes to
those performers earning less than say £1M per year before PRS paid
to them? I suspect it is a trivial amount and that the major purpose
of the PRS is to keep snouts firmly in troughs.

You can suspect all you like, but musicians I know are very fond of the
PRS and have great respect for the work it does.

I'm sure they do, it must be very profitable for "musicians"
struggling in cold garrets like Mrs Beckham.

The principle is that
musicians should not be expected to perform for free, nor should
composers be expected to have their works performed for free.

No one seems to have a problem with that concept.

There has to be a mechanism for extracting due payment and passing it on
to the performers and copyright holders. It is always going to be
complicated. Overall, the PRS does a pretty good job, but it cannot
ever be perfect. I somehow doubt that the financial rewards for being
one of the more senior people at the PRS are anywhere near justifying
the term "snouts in troughs".

So to ask the question again -:-

How much of each pound collected goes to running the PRS?
Of the remainder how much goes to already wealthy established
performers and how much to the majority at the bottom of the pile?

Does anyone know?

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
Steve Walker wrote:

for god sake it's a radio broadcast that
anyone can freely listen to, does it really matter who's radio they listen
on?


But it *isn't* a radio broadcast that anyone can freely listen to !!

That's the whole point.


So what about the 'transmissions' which are live-streamed to the 'net by the
broadcasters themselves ? Those are totally free to listen to by anyone,
world wide, whether they have a UK broadcast receiving license or not. The
likes of the BBC are not realistically going to be able to expect to control
any aspect of who or how many people are listening to any of their internet
output anywhere, so that has to constitute transmissions "that anyone can
freely listen to".

Perhaps the PRS should take that up with the BBC and others, and see if they
can persuade them to stop doing it, hmmm ? d;~}

Arfa

In article , Bruce
scribeth thus
"Clive George" wrote:

Thing is, I'm imagining a situation where each employee in a workshop has
their own walkman/radio/ipod with headphones/equivalent. That's legal
according to PRS, even if they're all listening to the same radio station.
Yet replace that with a single radio with a loudspeaker, and it suddenly
becomes a chargeable event.


Yes, that's correct. You have gone from personal use, which is funded
via the TV licence fee, to re-broadcasting, which needs a paid-for
licence from PRS.

Open and shut case, M'Lud.

Earlier in the thread, someone asked if the money raised by PRS actually
went back to the artists and copyright holders. Indeed it does; the PRS
has for many years employed a network of people who listen to the radio
and TV (while doing other things) and note down which songs are played
and who sang them. Different rates are payable depending on how much of
the song is played - for example an advert that samples a song doesn't
pay anywhere near the full whack.



Radio stations have to do PRS returns as well..

I reckon a lot of this has come about due to the amount of money they
are loosing through the loss of CD sales and the rise of downloading and
file sharing...



--
Tony Sayer

In article , David Hansen
scribeth thus
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:27:09 +0000 someone who may be Bruce
wrote this:-

It was bad enough in the days of
vinyl records being copied onto cassette tapes,

At the time the doom-sayers said that home taping was killing music.
If that had been true then music would be dead by now.

I was once given an "illegal" collection of tracks by an artist I
had just found out about. The upshot of that was that I bought two
CDs and I'll probably buy more. The artist has a little money they
would not otherwise have had.


Same here and I have a few files which I'd love to -buy- the original
versions of but there not available and the files are 128 MP3 which
isn't CD;!..

All this "copyright protection" crap has done for me is to stop me
purchasing music. When they remove it, as some shops have done, I'll
consider spending my money again.



Indeed Radio airplay was, and AFAIK still is, of great importance to
expose and advertise new music or artists etc to the public. Why they
seem hell bent of stopping it seems all arse about face;!...
--
Tony Sayer

In article , David Hansen
scribeth thus
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:16:57 +0000 someone who may be Bruce
wrote this:-

Because BBC Radion doesn't need a license to listen

Not for private and personal use, no. But for re-broadcasting copyright
music to others, yes.

Re-broadcasting would involve setting up a radio transmitter to
transmit the signals to radios in the workplace, so that line is
void.




Could be done with an iplayer transmitter 50 odd nanowatts IIRC but the
whole thing is stupid .. and only that form of stupidity that the
British can achieve;(...
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer coughed up some electrons that declared:


Radio stations have to do PRS returns as well..

Exactly. That's where PRS levies clearly apply. Any argument that it applies
to a few bods in a workshop is specious ********, law or no law.


I reckon a lot of this has come about due to the amount of money they
are loosing through the loss of CD sales and the rise of downloading and
file sharing...


Exactly, too. Do these people wonder if, it were possible to easily find and
buy a track in a variety of formats (including less lossy ones than MP3)
for, say around the 25-50p mark[1], that most people would rather do that
and get a decent copy, rather than fart around with hunting down a torrent
or P2P source, only to find a badly done rip.

Hell, the music industry dinosaurs might find it makes more revenue than
now, and they wouldn't have to lose sympathy by alienating their customers.

Cheers

Tim

[1]

That would equate to 2.50 to 5 quid per typical album, but with vastly
reduced distribution costs. I would suggest that this would allow a fair
profit to all parties concerned without ripping off the consumer.

Even HMV shops could adapt and not lose out - by having booths where you
could buy tracks and/or albums, pay and download direct to your player or a
USB stick on the spot - good for browsers and people without broadband.

On 27 Feb, 08:57, David Hansen
wrote:

I was once given an "illegal" collection of tracks by an artist I
had just found out about. The upshot of that was that I bought two
CDs and I'll probably buy more. The artist has a little money they
would not otherwise have had.

What galls me is that the artists in that position are usually also
those who aren't seeing a penny from the PRS, even if you are having
to pay the PRS.

"Clive George" wrote:

Um, that's not true. See the example given to you twice yet dismssed for no
apparent reason - the difference between 10 people listing to radio 2 on
their walkmen vs the same 10 listening to it on a radio with loudspeakers.
Both situations involve the same number of people hearing the same
song/performance at the same time, yet somehow you feel that one justifies
an extra payment.


Yes, of course it does, because it is being re-broadcast so anyone in
the vicinity can hear it. People listening through headphones are
individuals, each of whom comes under the definition of personal use,
which is paid for out of the TV licence fund or advertising.

I am surprised that you cannot see this very clear distinction, and that
you had to come up with the ridiculous example of 10 people gathered
together but listening to the same radio station *through headphones*!

But I suppose you needed a truly fatuous example to illustrate your
truly fatuous argument. ;-)

Tim S wrote:

I'd have more sympathy with the RIAA/MPAA and their ilk if they stopped
bleating, stopped encouraging ripping customers off, got with the times and
helped to make a move towards sensible internet selling at a sensible
price.


A recent survey showed that 19 out of 20 music tracks being listened to
on MP3 players were illegal copies or illegal downloads. That
represents a huge amount of revenue that is being denied to musicians
and composers.

If a high proportion of people respected copyright, prices could be
lower. The trouble is that prices stay high because only a small
proportion of music is being paid for.

No doubt you will suggest that, if the prices were lower, more people
would buy legal copies. Well, I very much doubt that, because once the
principle of copyright theft is as well established as it is now, the
same people will still steal the music for nothing, and musicians and
composers will get even less.

"Arfa Daily" wrote:

So what about the 'transmissions' which are live-streamed to the 'net by the
broadcasters themselves ? Those are totally free to listen to by anyone,
world wide, whether they have a UK broadcast receiving license or not. The
likes of the BBC are not realistically going to be able to expect to control
any aspect of who or how many people are listening to any of their internet
output anywhere, so that has to constitute transmissions "that anyone can
freely listen to".


They are free for personal use, not for re-broadcasting to other people
via loudspeaker(s).

I am surprised that you cannot see the distinction, which should be
abundantly clear.

In article , Tim S
scribeth thus
tony sayer coughed up some electrons that declared:


Radio stations have to do PRS returns as well..

Exactly. That's where PRS levies clearly apply. Any argument that it applies
to a few bods in a workshop is specious ********, law or no law.


I reckon a lot of this has come about due to the amount of money they
are loosing through the loss of CD sales and the rise of downloading and
file sharing...


Exactly, too. Do these people wonder if, it were possible to easily find and
buy a track in a variety of formats (including less lossy ones than MP3)
for, say around the 25-50p mark[1], that most people would rather do that
and get a decent copy, rather than fart around with hunting down a torrent
or P2P source, only to find a badly done rip.

Hell, the music industry dinosaurs might find it makes more revenue than
now, and they wouldn't have to lose sympathy by alienating their customers.

Cheers

Tim

[1]

That would equate to 2.50 to 5 quid per typical album, but with vastly
reduced distribution costs. I would suggest that this would allow a fair
profit to all parties concerned without ripping off the consumer.


Nooooo!, you can't do that, its waay too sensible;!....

Even HMV shops could adapt and not lose out - by having booths where you
could buy tracks and/or albums, pay and download direct to your player or a
USB stick on the spot - good for browsers and people without broadband.

They don't seem to be able to move with the times;!..
--
Tony Sayer

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:

"Clive George" wrote:

Um, that's not true. See the example given to you twice yet dismssed for
no apparent reason - the difference between 10 people listing to radio 2
on their walkmen vs the same 10 listening to it on a radio with
loudspeakers. Both situations involve the same number of people hearing
the same song/performance at the same time, yet somehow you feel that one
justifies an extra payment.


Yes, of course it does, because it is being re-broadcast so anyone in
the vicinity can hear it. People listening through headphones are
individuals, each of whom comes under the definition of personal use,
which is paid for out of the TV licence fund or advertising.

I am surprised that you cannot see this very clear distinction, and that
you had to come up with the ridiculous example of 10 people gathered
together but listening to the same radio station *through headphones*!

It's not ridiculous - it is an illustration showing that the economics of 10
private listeners in the same space is the same for the PRS as one radio
with 10 listeners in that space.

You already agree that 10 people listening to their own radio via headphones
is OK, so why chase people in the other scenario?

I say that the reason is because they *can*, not because they *should*. They
clearly think they've found an angle legally (which I dispute on moral
grounds as argued above), so having established that they might be able to
get away with screwing people for some more dosh, they, like their American
brethren, are persuing it with reckless abandon. Let's make no bones about
this - they found a way to screw people and screwing people is what they
are doing.

I'd like to see exactly how much money the artist at the bottom of the food
chain is seeing out of this fee.

Regarding the example above, 10 is a pretty round number that is quite
refelective of the point in question: ie a few people in an office or
workshop listening to some background radio.

10 is also quite distinct from 100, or 1000 or 10000 or 100000 which are the
sort of numbers one would expect to find in an audience when a piece of
music is being broadcast for general consumption (100 being a University
radio station, Radio 1 being somewhere at the other end).

What's special about the workplace anyway. Why not demand the fee when you
invite some mates around and play the radio at a party - that is just as
much of a "re-broadcast"?

But I suppose you needed a truly fatuous example to illustrate your
truly fatuous argument. ;-)

Do you work for the PRS?

Cheers

Tim

Bruce wrote:
A recent survey showed that 19 out of 20 music tracks being listened to
on MP3 players were illegal copies or illegal downloads. That
represents a huge amount of revenue that is being denied to musicians
and composers.

If a high proportion of people respected copyright, prices could be
lower. The trouble is that prices stay high because only a small
proportion of music is being paid for.

You can't expect people to spend 10,000 quid to fill an iPod with music.
Compare this with a typical collection of 100 CDs which are worth
perhaps 1000 quid.

No doubt you will suggest that, if the prices were lower, more people
would buy legal copies. Well, I very much doubt that, because once the
principle of copyright theft is as well established as it is now, the
same people will still steal the music for nothing, and musicians and
composers will get even less.

You are mistaking a CD sales crisis for a music crisis. Concert and
festival attendances are booming. The percentage of people's incomes
spent on music hasn't changed radically. Musicians (and composers) stand
to make much more money than before with the use of the internet to
promote themselves - it just doesn't need to support the recording
industry behemoth companies we needed in the past.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:36:08 UTC, Bruce wrote:

"Arfa Daily" wrote:

So what about the 'transmissions' which are live-streamed to the 'net by the
broadcasters themselves ? Those are totally free to listen to by anyone,
world wide, whether they have a UK broadcast receiving license or not. The
likes of the BBC are not realistically going to be able to expect to control
any aspect of who or how many people are listening to any of their internet
output anywhere, so that has to constitute transmissions "that anyone can
freely listen to".


They are free for personal use, not for re-broadcasting to other people
via loudspeaker(s).

I am surprised that you cannot see the distinction, which should be
abundantly clear.

The distinction is clear to me. It is also abundantly clear that it is
not sensible.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

I'd have more sympathy with the RIAA/MPAA and their ilk if they stopped
bleating, stopped encouraging ripping customers off, got with the times
and helped to make a move towards sensible internet selling at a sensible
price.


A recent survey showed that 19 out of 20 music tracks being listened to
on MP3 players were illegal copies or illegal downloads. That
represents a huge amount of revenue that is being denied to musicians
and composers.

and their "unions".

If a high proportion of people respected copyright, prices could be
lower. The trouble is that prices stay high because only a small
proportion of music is being paid for.

I don't disagree withthe notion artists deserve fair compensation - but the
converse is equally true.

CDs are cheaper to make than cassettes - did that mean that CDs were
cheaper? The industry has been accused of ripping people off for a long
time and if they want to address the problem, they need to make the move to
selling their wares in a more modern and cost effective way.

As I've said, I'll buy a track for 50p without a second thought, as long as
it's in a decent format of my choice (that means OGG for me, NO DRM crap)
and I can buy it on a whim from a website and shove it into as many players
as I own.

What actually happens is that I neither download nor buy any music these
days because I'll be damned if I'm paying upwards of 15 quid for an album
on CD when I only want one track. Singles are an even worse rip off at 2-3
quid for 3-4 minutes of music.

The music industry needs some serious attitude readjustment as people are no
longer prepared to be price gouged. The only difference over the last 3
decades is that now, illegally aquiring music is easier than it's ever
been.

No doubt you will suggest that, if the prices were lower, more people
would buy legal copies. Well, I very much doubt that, because once the
principle of copyright theft is as well established as it is now, the
same people will still steal the music for nothing, and musicians and
composers will get even less.

The only way to say if my assertion that cheaper music = more punters and
less ripping would be to try it. Until then, I have some sympathy for the
artists but none for those who would claim to represent them.

I notice that iTunes is managing to sell tracks for 79p. This is a step in
the right direction and seems to suggest that my assertion that 3 quid for
a single is a rip off. I find it hard to believe that the cost of
distribution of a CD single is 2.21

Cheers

Tim

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:13:24 +0000 someone who may be tony sayer
wrote this:-

Not for private and personal use, no. But for re-broadcasting copyright
music to others, yes.

Re-broadcasting would involve setting up a radio transmitter to
transmit the signals to radios in the workplace, so that line is
void.

Could be done with an iplayer transmitter

Indeed. One would also need to receive the original radio
transmission and then re-broadcast it, in much the same way as a
television relay.

but the
whole thing is stupid .. and only that form of stupidity that the
British can achieve;(...

AOL.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:

"Arfa Daily" wrote:

So what about the 'transmissions' which are live-streamed to the 'net by
the broadcasters themselves ? Those are totally free to listen to by
anyone, world wide, whether they have a UK broadcast receiving license or
not. The likes of the BBC are not realistically going to be able to expect
to control any aspect of who or how many people are listening to any of
their internet output anywhere, so that has to constitute transmissions
"that anyone can freely listen to".


They are free for personal use, not for re-broadcasting to other people
via loudspeaker(s).

I am surprised that you cannot see the distinction, which should be
abundantly clear.

I'm not sure how you manage to confuse "playing audio in a limited physical
space" with "broadcasting". Most people, including the dictionary I just
looked at take "broadcast" to imply strongly that radio waves are involved
as the broadcasting medium. I've never before heard anyone talk of playing
a radio as "rebroadcasting".

Tim S wrote:
They are free for personal use, not for re-broadcasting to other people
via loudspeaker(s).

I am surprised that you cannot see the distinction, which should be
abundantly clear.

I'm not sure how you manage to confuse "playing audio in a limited physical
space" with "broadcasting". Most people, including the dictionary I just
looked at take "broadcast" to imply strongly that radio waves are involved
as the broadcasting medium. I've never before heard anyone talk of playing
a radio as "rebroadcasting".

If "playing a CD" or "turning on the radio" can be defined to be a
"performance" I'm not sure that the English language is on our side
here.

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

So what about the 'transmissions' which are live-streamed to the 'net by
the
broadcasters themselves ? Those are totally free to listen to by anyone,
world wide, whether they have a UK broadcast receiving license or not. The
likes of the BBC are not realistically going to be able to expect to
control
any aspect of who or how many people are listening to any of their
internet
output anywhere, so that has to constitute transmissions "that anyone can
freely listen to".


They are free for personal use, not for re-broadcasting to other people
via loudspeaker(s).

I am surprised that you cannot see the distinction, which should be
abundantly clear.


The distinction you are making with tedious regularity is clear to everyone,
but that doesn't stop it being a pedantic and stupid one, which is what
every other sane person on here is trying to tell you. Back at ya that *you*
appear not to be able to see *that* distinction ...

Arfa