p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- Over the past year, writes Mike Masnick in TechDirt, “we’ve noticed an explosion in ridiculous attempts by music collection societies (often totally clueless about technology) to extend their ability to collect for positively ridiculous things (while also looking to significantly increase their collection rates).

“The latest, sent in by Dennis Laumen, is that the Dutch collection society, Buma/Stemra, is claiming that it’s going to start charging bloggers 130 euros for every 6 videos they embed,” he says.

It’s a given that, “anybody and anything to do with the corporate cartels is as thick as two short planks, has the imagination of stuffed zebra, moves as fast as a sloth with both feet nailed to the floor, and has the moral integrity of a bonobos chimpanzee,” said p2pnet in April last year.

“The same applies to their so-called ‘trade’ organisations such as Brein in The Netherlands,” said our story —-

—- and to Buma/Stemra, opined Piet van Dongen, the subject of the post.

Meanwhile, charging — or trying to charge — bloggers for the “embedding of a video” doesn’t change the fact it’s actually playing from, and hosted at, the original site (such as YouTube),” says TechDirt, continuing »»»

All embedding does is allow the video to appear via the other page, even though, technically, it’s all still happening at its original location. Claiming that this is somehow a “new” publication of the content is technologically incorrect.

This is somewhat similar to ASCAP’s recent technologically clueless claim that embedding YouTube videos should count as a public performance (along with its other recent claims that iTunes 30-second previews and your mobile phone ringtones should also be counted as public performances). You sort of get the feeling that many of these collection societies came to the conclusion about two years ago that they’re functionally obsolete, and rather than adapt to the times, they’ve all agreed to the same basic principle of going out in a blaze of glory.

They’re trying to vastly increase rates while covering any and ever attempt to use music in any way, bleeding everyone dry while making it that much more difficult for up-and-coming acts to get heard (since venues that promote them can’t pay the crazy rates) and (even better) setting up their payout mechanisms to massively favor the top acts.

“For the most part, these collection societies are simply being greedy, without putting a single thought towards actually helping composers and songwriters,” says masnick, adding:

“They’re looking for every single penny they could possibly collect today, and ignoring the medium and long-term impact of trying to charge for any sort of promotional behavior.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

TechDirt – Dutch Collection Society Looks To Charge Bloggers For Embedding YouTube Videos, October 7, 2009
p2pnet – Piet van Donge: sued by Brein,  April 2, 2008

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 10:24 am and is filed under Music, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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