UK Company sued for copyright infringement for allowing employees to listen to radios

The recording industry here in the U.S. has never been shy about going to extremes to defend the rights of copyright owners. Who can forget the lawsuit against the Girl Scouts of America for unlicensed singing of Happy Birthday around the campfire? There are lawsuits against the deceased and computer-less elderly for file sharing and $40,000 fines for having Lez Zeppelin play a few songs at your local establishment without proper ASCAP/BMI licensing.

So it might come as a surprise to hear that our friends across the pond in England might actually have it worse with the Performing Rights Society (or PRS). First was their demand a few years ago that guitar shop owners pay thousands of pounds in annual music licensing fees for all the Jimmy Page and "Smoke on the Water" riffs that aspiring guitarists will play as they try out new instruments in music shops.

And now, amazingly, the Kwik-Fit car repair company is being sued by the PRS for £200,000 in damages for unlicensed "public performances" of copyrighted music. Their crime? Allowing mechanics to play their music so loudly over the din of machinery in the garage that both customers and colleagues could hear it. According to the BBC:

"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 'authorized' or 'permitted' by local and central management."

On the bright side, if you live in the UK and your neighbors won't turn down their music this brings up some interesting options.

BBC Link via Techdirt

Comments

[Graeme Jarvie]

I wrote about this on my blog today (http://homepage.mac.com/tokyo.guide/blog/) and as I said there, it could set a ridiculous precedent. Surely music that's being played on the radio has been licensed for public performance anyway?

[Vic Perry]

Everyday these copyright things get more psychotic. The choice of protests would be a blast: I see thousands lining up outside of the offices of those responsible (or complicit) and singing, playing or "broadcasting" the songs in question. And bring those silently dancing girl scouts too!

[illlich]

Where does it all end? Can I copyright my name and then sue the US Census Bureau for using it? I note that the On Line Guitar Archive (OLGA.com) was shut down for posting the chord changes for popular songs; it wasn't music or lyrics, just lists of chords and partial lyrics, and in some cases "tablature" (that was often slightly wrong)-- so could I be sued for giving guitar lessons? (BTW- there are still many more sites out there doing the same thing anyway).

The music industry is changing, the windfall profits the record companies got in the 80's and 90's are gone and they are scared. Money is the drug and they need a fix. They fooled people into ditching their record collections in favor of CDs, only to have the companies remaster them later on, then remaster with bonus tracks a 3rd or 4th time . . . HOW many times were the Byrds albums remastered for cd?

Greed, pure and simple. But they have the money to influence the laws, and all we have is our voices and we can spend all our time yelling at our officials; lobbyists get paid, we get the shaft.

[Dale Hazelton]

How about a class action lawsuit from African American descendants of slaves who've had their traditional field songs usurped for the basis of (or blatant copying) Swing, Jazz, Blues, Gospel and Rock & Roll? Ain't that improper use or infringement?