My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

regards
--
Tim Lamb

On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Yes. He wasn't daft enough to admit to having a radio was he?

You might enjoy the thread on overclockers about PRS

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=17961741

or a lawyers view

http://www.out-law.com/page-9199

They target small businesses, village halls and the like.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message , Martin Brown
writes
On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Yes. He wasn't daft enough to admit to having a radio was he?

You might enjoy the thread on overclockers about PRS

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=17961741

or a lawyers view

http://www.out-law.com/page-9199

They target small businesses, village halls and the like.


They bombarded my company with five threatening letters in three weeks
in which I was abroad

They then phoned up a few days after I got back

Well, you know how I love to get a bit sweary at times ...

they have never phoned up again

We also had a couple of what can only be classed as threatening letters
from TV licensing shortly before the olympics - both of which, of
course, went straight in the bin


--
geoff

geoff wrote:
In message , Martin Brown
writes
On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to
extract money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to
listen to a portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Yes. He wasn't daft enough to admit to having a radio was he?

You might enjoy the thread on overclockers about PRS

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=17961741

or a lawyers view

http://www.out-law.com/page-9199

They target small businesses, village halls and the like.


They bombarded my company with five threatening letters in three weeks
in which I was abroad

They then phoned up a few days after I got back

Well, you know how I love to get a bit sweary at times ...

they have never phoned up again

We also had a couple of what can only be classed as threatening
letters from TV licensing shortly before the olympics - both of
which, of course, went straight in the bin


An old one, but if you know they are from TVLA then do not open them. Save
12 months worth of them (ie 12 letters) and then just pop them back into a
post box with "unwanted junk mail" written across your address.

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...o2020/TVLA.jpg

Feel free to write any messages on the other side of the letter that you are
sending back. The ****s do not offer free SAEs for you to reply to them.

--
Adam

In article , geoff
writes

They bombarded my company with five threatening letters in three weeks
in which I was abroad

They then phoned up a few days after I got back

Well, you know how I love to get a bit sweary at times ...

they have never phoned up again

We also had a couple of what can only be classed as threatening letters
from TV licensing shortly before the olympics - both of which, of
course, went straight in the bin

At our last office we had a real **** of a neighbour, since we left
every TV I've bought for myself or on behalf of others has been
registered to his address. I hope he is getting visits.
--
fred
it's a ba-na-na . . . .

On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Yes. once a year I think they call.
Every year I give them the same answers and tell them we don't have
music, we're not a gym, we don't have a staff room and we don't listen
to the radio as we couldn't hear the phones ring.

They're almost as bad as the debt collection agencies that try and scare
you into giving them money you don't owe them.

Pete

--
http://www.gymratz.co.uk/waterrower/
You'll not find a more beautiful exercise machine!

Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?


Oh yes. tell them to sue and be damned.

An that every man jack of the workforce has paid their TV license fees
and you will promptly issue them with personal radios one apiece if he
****es you off any more. And that the BBC who broadcasts this music as
already paid its performing rights license.

Their allaged case hinges on this interpreation

"3. What is a €˜public performance?

Music is performed €˜in public when it is performed outside what could
be regarded as the domestic circle or home life. This includes music
performances €“ of live and recorded music or music from TV and radio €“
in premises from concert halls to corner shops.

For example, the composers audience in a workplace would be people at
work, whether in an office or staff canteen, a factory or the kitchen of
a restaurant. A workplace is obviously not a domestic environment and
therefore a Music Licence is required if our copyright music is being used."

Now AFAIK that definition of a public place has never been tested.

And in fact this definition

"Public Place Law & Legal Definition

A public place is generally an indoor or outdoor area, whether privately
or publicly owned, to which the public have access by right or by
invitation, expressed or implied, whether by payment of money or not,
but not a place when used exclusively by one or more individuals for a
private gathering or other personal purpose. The following is an example
of a state law defining public places for smoking laws:

"Public place" means any enclosed indoor area used by the general public
or serving as a place of work containing two hundred fifty or more
square feet of floor space, including, but not limited to, all
restaurants with a seating capacity greater than fifty, all retail
stores, lobbies and malls, offices, including waiting rooms, and other
commercial establishments; public conveyances with departures, travel,
and destination entirely within this state; educational facilities;
hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other health care and medical
facilities; and auditoriums, elevators, theaters, libraries, art
museums, concert halls, indoor arenas, and meeting rooms. "Public place"
does not include a retail store at which fifty percent or more of the
sales result from the sale of tobacco or tobacco products, the portion
of a retail store where tobacco or tobacco products are sold, a private,
enclosed office occupied exclusively by smokers even though the office
may be visited by nonsmokers, a room used primarily as the residence of
students or other persons at an educational facility, a sleeping room in
a motel or hotel, or each resident's room in a health care facility. The
person in custody or control of the facility shall provide a sufficient
number of rooms in which smoking is not permitted to accommodate all
persons who desire such rooms. "

Felt it necessary to actually define it as being a place where people work.

since by definition places where people work are actually not public
places under the normal interpretation of the law.


Note that under the definition above, anyone playing a radio in e.g. a
park, which is clearly 'not a domestic place' or indeed in their car,
to friends, needs a PR license too.


Ther is case law.

PRS V Kwkfit found found

"If that picture were to be satisfactorily established after proof, it
is in my view at least possible that liability for copyright
infringement would be brought home against the defenders under either or
both of sections 16 and 26(3) of the Act. At this stage, certainly, such
an outcome cannot be ruled out, especially in circumstances where the
true scope and application of the law regarding the "playing" or
"performance" of copyright works "in public" have not been explored in
argument. On relevancy grounds, therefore, the pursuers are in my view
entitled to the inquiry which they seek. Having reached that conclusion,
however, I am not to be taken as accepting that, on proof of the
averments in question, the pursuers would necessarily succeed in their
claims against the defenders. In the course of the debate various
hypothetical situations were figured in which charges of copyright
infringement might arguably go beyond the contemplated scope of the
legislation and/or offend against common sense. Whether, in the event,
any such difficulties materialise in this case will depend on how the
evidence turns out at the proof."

That is there might be a case, or there might not.

it gets even sillier

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...y-licence.html



In short, I'd be inclined to make the *******s take you to court if
only once and for all to kick the whole matter up to the High court to
define once and for all what rights these swine have to demand money
with menaces.

The judges summary contains one important sentence

"In the course of the debate various hypothetical situations were
figured in which charges of copyright infringement might arguably go
beyond the contemplated scope of the legislation and/or *offend against
common sense*".

And there it is. what constitutes a public place for the purposes of the
Act is finally down to common sense.

Not down to what the performing rights society says it is.



regards


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

"Tim Lamb" wrote in message
...

My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's quite common.

If he (and, if working from home, his family) are the only people who can
hear it then he can tell them to Foxtrot Oscar.

If OTOH co-workers and/or visiting customers can hear it, then they have
every right to collect (moral argument about that right irrelevant)

tim

On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Yup, a few of our clients have had that. Basically asking lots of
leading questions to try and find an excuse to send a bill.


--
Cheers,

John.

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

On Aug 30, 1:25*pm, John Rumm wrote:
On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:

My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Yup, a few of our clients have had that. Basically asking lots of
leading questions to try and find an excuse to send a bill.

Why would anyone answer such questions? They have no statutory right
to question you.
And if you're registered with the TPS / corporate TPS, what right do
they believe they have to disturb you?

"mike" wrote in message
...

On Aug 30, 1:25 pm, John Rumm wrote:
On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:

My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Yup, a few of our clients have had that. Basically asking lots of
leading questions to try and find an excuse to send a bill.

Why would anyone answer such questions? They have no statutory right
to question you.
And if you're registered with the TPS / corporate TPS, what right do
they believe they have to disturb you?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Because they aren't making a marketing call

tim

On Aug 30, 8:55*pm, "tim....." wrote:
"mike" *wrote in message

...

And if you're registered with the TPS / corporate TPS, what right do
they believe they have to disturb you?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------

Because they aren't making a marketing call

tim

Well, in that case, no one will be buying a licence, will they?

In message
,
mike writes
On Aug 30, 8:55*pm, "tim....." wrote:
"mike" *wrote in message

...

And if you're registered with the TPS / corporate TPS, what right do
they believe they have to disturb you?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------

Because they aren't making a marketing call

tim

Well, in that case, no one will be buying a licence, will they?

This thread seems to have struck a bit of a sour note!

The actual circumstances are one man and a shed full of machines. The
radio is on because he suffers from tinnitus and finds loud music masks
the symptoms.

There is also a *bench space* associate but their working hours rarely
coincide.

Thanks to all for the comments and pointers.

regards

--
Tim Lamb

"mike" wrote in message
...

On Aug 30, 8:55 pm, "tim....." wrote:
"mike" wrote in message

...

And if you're registered with the TPS / corporate TPS, what right do
they believe they have to disturb you?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------

Because they aren't making a marketing call

tim

Well, in that case, no one will be buying a licence, will they?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I assume that you're making the connection with an end result of paying out
some money meaning that it must be a marketing call

They are an legally constructed organisation attempting to collect a legally
constructed fee. They are not attempting to sell you something that you
might not need.

This is no different from the Inland Revenue (theoretically) ringing you
because you haven't paid your tax this month.

Are the revenue making a marketing call?

And (once again, more explicitly this time), nothing that I have written
here should be construed to imply that I think the situations under which
this fee is legally required, are morally right.

tim

In article ,
Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Not unusual. If he works on his own in his own premises, it's usually not
required. But if others are present - especially the public - he may well
need one. As it then becomes a performance.

--
*If PROGRESS is for advancement, what does that make CONGRESS mean?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 30/08/2012 14:25, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Not unusual. If he works on his own in his own premises, it's usually not
required. But if others are present - especially the public - he may well
need one. As it then becomes a performance.

And make sure you PABX does not play something that counts when folks
are "on hold"...


--
Cheers,

John.

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

In article ,
John Rumm writes:
On 30/08/2012 14:25, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Not unusual. If he works on his own in his own premises, it's usually not
required. But if others are present - especially the public - he may well
need one. As it then becomes a performance.

And make sure you PABX does not play something that counts when folks
are "on hold"...

You can buy royalty-free CDs for this purpose,
or even commission a recording for your own use.

You can even get CDs which include the voice-overs
"your call is important to us", "you are moving up
the queue", etc.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:52:55 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
John Rumm writes:
On 30/08/2012 14:25, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to
extract money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen
to a portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Not unusual. If he works on his own in his own premises, it's usually
not required. But if others are present - especially the public - he
may well need one. As it then becomes a performance.

And make sure you PABX does not play something that counts when folks
are "on hold"...

You can buy royalty-free CDs for this purpose,
or even commission a recording for your own use.

I just bought two or three bits over the net.

You can even get CDs which include the voice-overs "your call is
important to us", "you are moving up the queue", etc.

I've probably posted this link before, but it's worth repeating. Listen
to all of it.

http://www.tavi.co.uk/you-are-not-the-next-caller.mp3




--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

Huge wrote:
On 2012-08-30, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:52:55 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
John Rumm writes:
On 30/08/2012 14:25, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone
attempting to extract money on behalf of performing rights
for his daring to listen to a portable radio in his
workshop!

Anyone come across this?

Not unusual. If he works on his own in his own premises, it's
usually not required. But if others are present - especially
the public - he may well need one. As it then becomes a
performance.

And make sure you PABX does not play something that counts when
folks are "on hold"...

You can buy royalty-free CDs for this purpose,
or even commission a recording for your own use.

I just bought two or three bits over the net.

You can even get CDs which include the voice-overs "your call is
important to us", "you are moving up the queue", etc.

I've probably posted this link before, but it's worth repeating.
Listen to all of it.

http://www.tavi.co.uk/you-are-not-the-next-caller.mp3

Too true to be funny.


Not as funny as the prs website.

http://www.prsformusic.com/users/bus...licence.aspx#6


How many times can they uses the words "PRS for Music, at its discretion"?

--
Adam

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
Not unusual. If he works on his own in his own premises, it's usually
not required. But if others are present - especially the public - he
may well need one. As it then becomes a performance.

And make sure you PABX does not play something that counts when folks
are "on hold"...


Usually muzak. The sort where you pay a fixed fee for the use of. Ever
wondered why they don't play the latest hit?

--
*Change is inevitable ... except from vending machines *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

regards
Make your own cd of music from performers that allow free use and play
it full bore when the prs come round.

In article m,
F Murtz wrote:
Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

regards
Make your own cd of music from performers that allow free use and play
it full bore when the prs come round.

making sure that none of the music is copyright.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

In message m, F Murtz
writes
Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

regards
Make your own cd of music from performers that allow free use and play
it full bore when the prs come round.

Ask them for a comprehensive list of all the all the artists that they
represent so you can be sure to avoid playing their music

or ...

tell them where to go

--
geoff

On 30/08/2012 12:16, Tim Lamb wrote:
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?

regards
For the small hall community hall I look after the situation just got
worse. PRS now combines with PPL, demanding their own fee and collecting
PPL's as well. They both have a scale of charges depending on amount of
activity. Our hall's level of activity is way below their lowest
threshold and thus attracts their minimum fee - it just happens to be
almost 10% of our annual intake! Our users do play CDs so ....

Can anyone explain to me what PPL is charging for that PRS isn't?

FRank

In message , Tim Lamb
writes
My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to
extract money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen
to a portable radio in his workshop!

Just watching a film with a scene set in India ... with indian music

I wonder where the PRS imagine they stand on this?

Little chance of them being affiliated to the PRS

--
geoff

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:16:11 +0100, Tim Lamb wrote:

My woodworking tenant is being harassed by someone attempting to extract
money on behalf of performing rights for his daring to listen to a
portable radio in his workshop!

Anyone come across this?


They've been threatening us for about 3 years by phone and mail. We had a
radio in the back room of the shop with radio 5 on. Customers couldn't
hear it but apparently we were still making (and benefiting financially
from) a 'public broadcast'.

Half of the problem is the people who **** themselves and pay up. it
makes it appear worth their while hassling everyone else.