SABAM Wants Truckers To Pay For Listening To Radio 337
guruevi writes "SABAM, the Belgian RIAA, wants truckers to start paying for the copyrights to listen to the radio in their cabin (Google translation of Dutch original). SABAM already has a system in place to extract fees from businesses for having radios in the work area for businesses with more than 9 employees, and they find that truckers' cabins are areas of work and thus infringe on their copyrights. The local politicians think this is going too far; they believe truckers need a radio for safety reasons and view a truck cabin as 'an intimate place.'"
Radio (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Advertising revenue
2. Free promotion of new music
BS (Score:5, Insightful)
The radio station broadcasting it already paid the royalties for a license to broadcast it.
Double dipping hogwash.
Re:I'd be fine with this, as long as... (Score:5, Insightful)
The industry is dying. They're going after any revenue stream they can dream up now.
Bah. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, if you don't want anyone to listen to your music, don't broadcast it.
This is like people who post shit on the web and get butthurt when people link to it. If you don't want people having whatever it is you're serving, don't put a computer on the web that doles it out in response to a HTTP GET request.
If you don't want people listening to your music, don't broadcast it as an unencrypted FM signal. You should not be able to broadcast something in the clear and then put conditions on who can tune in.
Re:That's just unfair (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish they'd try that in the US. US law is no less screwed up than UK and European law, but I'd really like to see them try that here. The FCC can't even enforce the laws regarding mobile radios in the trucking industry. Any screwball can buy a high powered 10 meter radio and have it adapted to operate on Citizen's band - then add a kicker that puts out 1600 or more watts.
It would truly be funny to see inspectors trying to enforce copyright nonsense at a truck inspection station!
"When music is outlawed, only outlaws will have music!" Yeah - I like the NRA too.
Re:Radio (Score:4, Insightful)
So on your cable TV there are no commercials at all even though you pay by the month, right?
Pardon the sarcasm - but this is the business model they are after. They want the ad revenue AND the monthly "rent".
Re:Bah. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say "if you don't want your content available for free on the internet, then don't make it available without authentication." I know that is what you said, but it is less clear.
It's not that they "don't want something." It's that they want more. They already get money from radio stations for "publicly performing" the music. Now they want to charge the audience for listening too. They are just expanding their collection efforts the same way governments seek to justify collecting more money by taxing the same things over and over and over again the way they do with gasoline and other things.
Will the RIAA and the like ever see "enough money"? The answer is obviously no, they won't. And if they are allowed to continue without limits, they will consume ALL money. So naturally, if they are to exist, they must be limited in some way at some point. The answer to all of this is drawing that line and not letting them push that line any further.
Re:Logical conclusions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Belgian BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd be fine with this, as long as... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, ostensibly the radio was an advertisement for the album. The radio plays one or two songs from the album and people hear it and want to hear more from the album. The problem facing todays music industry is that they seem to be unable to find any artists that can actually put an albums worth of music together, let alone one that has any real staying power. So they are getting desperate and looking anywhere they can for revenue.
I really think that's vanishingly unlikely. What, the world supply of talented musicians has just dried up?
What I think is more likely is the beancounters and the svengalis running the record companies have become so obsessed with finding the Next Big Thing there's nobody left working at a record company who understands the idea of nurturing talent over the course of many years. Which means they've become remarkably talented at finding and pushing the next Rebecca Black (intentionally stupid example before anyone points it out) and remarkably bad at developing a strong pool of musicians who start out with a hell of a lot of promise but still very rough around the edges.
Don't believe me? See if you can dig out early studio recordings by Blondie. I mean really early - the stuff that never made it to a release. Debbie Harry sounds dire, and if she was on the X factor today Simon Cowell would probably tell her to go and become a truck driver.
Re:I'd be fine with this, as long as... (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to be that these companies kissed the ass of Radio stations. Who knows, they still might.
Now they buy radio stations.
Here is what I propose... play garage band songs, and songs by people who dont want to nickle and dime the consumer to death
Here is what I propose, put an end to payments based on where music is played. I bought the record and I should be able to play it where I want. Yes, I know the law says otherwise. I think that law is wrong.
Re:That's just unfair (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, I know NOTHING abotu CB radio but I figured out what "10m" meant and I intuit that a 1600W transmitter is much more than legally allowed by the FTC.
Re:The supplied translation link... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a second. This article doesn't make sense even if it is translated correctly.
It's really easy for those copyright owners to protect themselves from these people who, from the copyright owners' perspective, apparently, are "stealing" from them or somehow hearing the songs unfairly. It's really easy to do that, and we already have a system set up for that. We don't need a new governmental or semi-governmental program to protect the copyright owners in this case, because we already have that system.
The system is called DON'T FUCKING BROADCAST YOUR FUCKING SONGS ON THE MOTHERFUCKING AIR IF YOU DON'T FUCKING WANT PEOPLE TO FUCKING LISTEN TO THEM YOU FUCKING FUCK. Fer fuck's sake, honestly.
Oh, really? You are being so injured by people listening to your broadcasts? Well here's what I suggest you do to fix that: NOTHING. DO NOTHING. DO NOT BROADCAST YOUR SHIT, AND PEOPLE WON'T HEAR YOUR SHIT. Mission accomplished.