The answer is simple: The infringement by radio stations increases the sale of the performed recording.

Still, one class of massive easily preventable infringement for profit, by radio station and other venues, should not be allowed while p2p sharing with its unavoidable infringement is attacked as theft.

I am surprised that this angle has not been visited by the p2p “press”.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

How performance licensing works is simple. For example, a radio station pays ASCAP or BMI or another performance rights organization (PRO) for a license that allows the station the use of the songs in the catalog of PRO and the PROs affiliated to the licensing PRO. For example a song that is not in the American PRO catalog may be in the afilliated French PRO catalog. Thus, if the song is found in any of the 50 or so catalogs, it may be performed. But the radio station does not get a a copy of any of the many catalogs they may need to check before using a song. This is a big mistery that no one has been able to explain: How are songs to be checked against agains the 50 or so catalogs that are not on hand?

Recently I read where a PRO (ASCAP) reached a licensing agreement with a BUS trade association so that the music licensed by the PRO could be played in the buses of the many bus companies belonging to the bus association. I imagine this is how that works out. A bus driver places a CD in the CD player, pushes the button and the music is played in the bus. The only problem is that the bus driver (or the Bus comany) has no way of knowing which tracks on the CD can be played with the PRO license and which track cannot be performed, since thre CD tracks do not say which PRO licenses which song (a good idea since the PRO of a song can change at any time). Also if the driver, instead of driving is more concerned about not infringing songs and a song catalog, he may drive the bus into a ditch. Certainly bus safety cannot be superceded by a desire not to infringe songs.

My connections in the radio industry tell me that the PRO licensing is nothing more than a scam in which the radio stations have allowed the PRO extorsion so as to survive and that no filtering is really done.

The PROs and the radio industry has had many years to develop and iron out a filter so as not to infringe songs and have atterly failed.

Some basic questions we must make:
Who thinks that the Internet can do what the PROs and the radio and their batallion of lawyers have not been able to do in many years of operation?
Who is the Australia court kidding in the KAZAA case? Didn’t anyone explain this to the judges?

A point: The vast majority, I guess over 99 percent, of literary and musical works that have been created are in the public domain. The rights to these works belong to the people and it patently unfair that the people cannot freely share these work on the Internet because a tiny fraction of all works have owners and their interest are overiding.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

I am troubled by any filering requirement that prevent any p2p sharing of public domain works. Clearly any filtering mechanism that stops the sharing of public domain music is operating againt the law and/or the public interest.

Even determining if a work is public domain through software is an impossible task, since music files (mp3 or whatever) never have a public domain flag or any information that states that the music is not public domain or on what year, which could be next year, the work becomes public domain and may be shared freely.

I beleive the court requested something that is impossible. Easier sasd than done,

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

Isn’t it time to end this crap once and for all….