Eating in silence in Oz
p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- In Canada, SOCAN is infamous as a Big Music organisation which exists to rip off anybody and everybody from school cafeterias to hairdressers.
But Canada isn’t alone. In fact, there are similar organisations all around the world.
For example, there’s STIM, short for Swedish Performing Rights Society.
Then over in Oz, there’s the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia where cafe and restaurant patrons could, “soon be eating in silence, after a proposal by Australia’s largest record labels to increase the cost of background music by up to 2000 times,” says The Age.
WHAT !!!! ????
You read it correctly,
The bid by the PPCA, which represents more than 750 record companies, “follows a decision by the Copyright Tribunal to approve an increase of 15 times the music costs for the nightclub industry, which was recently endorsed by the Federal Court of Australia,” says the story, going on »»»
The Australasian Performing Right Association, which collects licensing fees on behalf of composers and artists, has launched a separate action for a tenfold increase in the fees paid by nightclubs for recorded music.
Buoyed by the nightclub ruling, the PPCA is now targeting eateries. It wants to increase licensing fees in a 120-seat restaurant to $19,344 a year — up from $125. Small cafes would be slugged with a 4729 per cent yearly increase from $124 to $5860.
Action against fitness centres is under way and the PPCA has indicated it will review the cost of playing music in pubs, shops and hairdressing salons.
“The multinational record companies are obviously trying to reposition the cost of music, but they don’t understand the economics of the businesses they’re targeting,” the story has the Australian Hotel Association’s Bill Healey saying, adding:
“Businesses just won’t play music or they will play music that won’t incur a PPCA fee like classical music.”
‘Notorious for not finding artists to pay’
Back in March, “”We’ve talked about the ridiculousness of the various music collections societies being involved in the discussions on new music business models,”" said Mike Masnick in TechDirt, continuing »»»
To them, the answer is always the same: add another license and let us collect it. They’re middlemen and they take in tons of money and would only be all too happy to take in more. Some got upset with us in the comments, by noting that some of these collections societies are non-profits. In fact, the new Choruss offering, which we’ve already explained why it’s a bad idea that’s more of a bait-and-switch than anything useful, has been described as a similar “non-profit” collections group.
But, as we’ve noted in the past, supposedly nonprofit collections groups such as SoundExchange (a spinoff of the RIAA) are notorious for not finding artists to pay — even some of the biggest names in the business. Oh, and did we mention that if the royalties go “unclaimed” the recording industry (via SoundExchange) often gets to keep the money? Given that bit of info, it’s perhaps no surprise at all that P2Pnet is noticing that SoundExchange’s own tax returns note that the nonprofit was sitting on over $100 million at the end of 2007, a pretty significant leap over previous years, and a somewhat startling sum for a supposed “nonprofit” in charge of both collecting and distributing funds.
It seems like those musicians sure are difficult to find.
The P2Pnet report also points out that it will be interesting to see how much SoundExchange has spent on lobbying efforts. SoundExchange is actually barred from lobbying the government, but has been ignoring that for years by funding musicFIRST, a recording industry lobbying group that’s trying to add a new license for radio stations to pay (collected by SoundExchange, of course) by claiming that radio is actually a form of piracy.
On the Oz farce, “Thanks to this ruling, the Australasian Performing Right Association, which collects a separate fee for composers and artists, is asking for its own massive increase in fees,” says Mike in TechDirt, adding:
“All this really does is highlight another ridiculous aspect to collections societies: their rates aren’t set by the market or any effort to become more efficient/offer a better product. Instead, the rates are set by various copyright boards, courts or tribunals who get pushed heavily by industry interests for such increases.
“Even so, while we’ve seen crazy numbers from around the world, I’ve never seen percentage increases like those being discussed in Australia. It’s as if the collections societies there don’t want anyone ever playing music again.”
Stay tuned.
cafeterias to hairdressers – SOCAN threatens p2pnet. Again, August 2, 2007
STIM – Swedish ‘music rights’ ass: same old dirge, April 23, 2009
The Age – I’ll have a little Elvis with that, thanks, June 14, 2009
TechDirt – How Come SoundExchange Is Holding Onto Over $100 Million?, March 23, 2009
Choruss offering – ‘Tens of thousands’ sign up for Choruss, June 12, 2009
TechDirt – Playing Music In A Nightclub Just Got Ridiculously More Expensive In Australia, June 15, 2009
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June 17th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Neat, they’re doing all they can to run themselves out of business.
Do you think for a moment if I was a caterer and had to pay even $5000 that I would play music for people? Forget that. Those folks can bring their own music if they want it that bad.
All I see here is an industry so greedy that they have lost all touch with reality and what normal folks that work for a living make. Since no one will be able to afford it, they may make the first year on fines to people that don’t know about the rate increase. Those that do won’t be playing the major labels stuff no more. Can’t say I blame them.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Actually, SOCAN’s equivalent in Australia is APRA, not PPCA. The quality of that article’s research is reflected in the quality of the argument.
Sadly, much like the Sean Hannitys and Bill O’Reillys of the world, advocates against IP (Intellectual Property, read: copyright) largely read what they want to read, ignore or dismiss the other side and fail to get their facts; relying instead on what they want to believe is happening. I’m all for revamping copyright, it’s dated and showing a lot of cracks; and it is being addressed slowly. But I’m not willing to see creative people pay the price in the interim because people feel everything they use should be free.
SOCAN is a not-for-profit, representing and collecting on behalf of music writers, who for the most part starve to death (we’re not talking artists here) without the backend (Performance Royalties). The lack of education outside of the industry is mind blowing and if anything, SOCAN’s shortcoming is in not being able to educate everyone as to what they do. “Rip(ping) off everybody and anybody” isn’t in their mandate. If you want to use something, you rent it or you buy it, be it a circular saw or a car. IP is no different and arguments to the contrary are uneducated, self-serving or more often both.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
–>IP<–
theres a bag of free IP for ya Sean, now go troll elsewhere. people on p2pnet are far from uneducated and self serving.
are you really that fucking retarded that you ACUTALLY think a 2000%-4000% increase is fair?
dont go away mad, just go away.
stw