OT performing rights society

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bruce saying something like:

Fuck off, Bruce.

[Bruce]

It has only been paid for for personal use. Any use beyond that hasn't been paid for - not to pay for anything over and above personal use is indeed getting it for free without the owner's permission, which is the definition of theft.

[Bruce]

Personal use, so already covered. ;-)

[Bruce]

I momentarily forgot that you cannot read. Sometimes.

[Big Grin]

If you need to defend TMH then that says even more about your character - especially the penchant for idiotic signatures. *eg*

*Big* *Grin*

[Arfa Daily]

Or the PRS's literal if not moral interpretation of them ...

Arfa

[Arfa Daily]

Have *you* ... ?

Arfa

[tony sayer]

Ah! but they can be received by more then the one as I found out in traffic the other day;)..

[ARWadsworth]

From: "Grimly Curmudgeon" Subject: Re: OT performing rights society Date: 27 February 2009 18:42

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bruce saying something like:

Fuck off, Bruce.

Grimly

As you are a sensible minded member of the community could you tell me who should have paid for the PRS licence when my appentice did his community service. The radio was on full blast when he mowed the grass in the church yard. Several other people who were doing their community hours could listen to this radio as could anyone visiting a grave or the church.

The probation officer (not sure of his status but he had a badge on his jumper) supplied the radio!

Adam

[OG]

Why did you think that a 'full blast' radio was appropriate under the circumstances? If you were responsible for this lad's professional development you should have told the PO to take his radio away with him.

[geoff]

In message , David Hansen writes

How embarrassing, most peeps agreeing with hansen

[geoff]

In message , Arfa Daily writes

get real ...

you first need a working brain

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "OG" saying something like:

Why, the stiffs of course.

Actually, I'm vaguely in agreement with you. Being forced to listen to a loud pop channel is a pain in the arris.

[John Rumm]

Indeed its the same logic where MS or Adobe or one of the record labels claim they recovered x million quids worth of pirate software - when in actual fact it was legally bought genuine software made by them, but then parallel imported. In other words preventing them from defrauding markets by price fixing.

Or a game producer says that they are demanding hundreds of thousands of lost revenue for a game that has been illegally duplicated by a "gang of pirates" based on the logic that each copy made is one lost sale.

At least that much is reflected in uk law where copyright is not a criminal offence, unlike theft.

Its the same bait and switch that industry has been following for many years. Much the same as attempting to use technical mechanisms to stop people format shifting material they have paid for, when they don't even have a mechanism for selling the material in the alternative format.

[John Rumm]

It represents no value at all unless those users would otherwise have paid for all of that content.

However I expect massive slight of hand here.

They are almost certainly describing as "illegal" music on the players that was copied form the owners *own* CD collection. Now to be fair there is a legal point there. The UK regulations do not enshrine fair use, and making a copy of a CD you own for use in the car or on a portable player is technically a violation of copyright.

However the vast majority of people will feel perfectly justified in ripping their own CDs to use in these ways (as they would making their own compilations from their existing CDs etc).

The fact that the technology exists, and there are sufficient ambulance chaser grade litigators about to start pursuing these "lost" revenues, does not make it ethical in most people mind.

As always this is on of the problems with bad or unethical law - it makes the law an ass and brings it into contempt along with *all* other law.

You may be right, however alas there has never been any indication of that in the past. If more people respected copyright, the prices would stay much the same even if they could be lower.

They used to say that CDs were only temporarily more expensive than LPs because they need to recoup the cost of development of the CD technology (glossing over the fact the the music industry did not actual pay for that R&D in the first place). Note how the prices tumbled to reflect the lower costs of manufacture and distribution once that R&D cost had been recouped (not!) More people buying would only serve to re-enforce the message that the pricing must be about right.

The reality is that they set a price that they thought the market would bare, taking into account a perceived higher quality of product and ran with it for as long as the market would stand it. Now it is their right to do that - any business intended to make a profit will do something similar. However if you persist in doing this long enough you loose the support of your customers and any loyalty they feel toward you.

I don't think price is much of an issue. Some people will copy it regardless of price. Others won't pay because the industry refuses to sell the product they want, however would be prepared to pay the asking price if the product was available.

For example - I buy all my music on CD - and would not dream of paying for a download. Not because I have any objection to downloading it in principle, but simply because I refuse to pay for something that contains DRM, is encoded at a low bit rate, and where I don't have any guarantee of being able to control what I do with my download in the future.

Assuming the industry did provide what I would consider buying as a download, then I would also not expect to pay the same price for it as a physical product - especially when the content creators are not receiving a larger share of the revenue in compensation. (in reality they tend to receive even smaller share of the money from downloads than they do from physical media sales)

[John Rumm]

A nail gun has the capability to shoot someone - that is not allowed either, buts its legal to buy a nail gun.

However the point does illustrate that UK law is out of touch with reality and what is considered moral and ethical by most people. (its also why there was special "kludge" legislation enacted to make time shifting on videos legal)

I hope you pay the PRS fee when you use your iPod in public and the stranger sat next to you can overhear your music... practice what you preach and all that.

[John Rumm]

After getting fed up with record company demands to produce ever more "popular" stuff, rather that the stuff he really wanted to record, Chris Rea decided to set up his own label and produce what he wanted to do.

The result was the awesome work "Blue Guitars"[1]. This is a phenomenal demonstration of what can be achieved by someone with a passion for music, and the necessary talent and drive. The whole collection represents something like 120 completely new and original tracks plus accompanying book and DVD, and originally cost something like £30 IIRC when I bought mine.

[1] If you are into any sort of blues, then it well worth buying IMHO, some amazon marketplace sellers still have it:

> No doubt you will suggest that, if the prices were lower, more people

It did mine. I would not usually be prepared to take a punt on something that I might like (rather than something I know I like) if its going to cost me £12. However there is a good record shop in Southend that has lots of second hand stuff in pristine condition - with the top price being £6 and most being in the £3 to £5 range. Here I am quite happy to go and spend say £25 on half a dozen CDs of more experimental stuff that I am not so familiar with. Ultimately you find stuff you did not know about before and probably buy more of it as well.

hear hear!

[John Rumm]

As is the time honoured tradition with golden geese.

[John Rumm]

Yup, in Bruce's ideal world, apparently it depends on how well you know them. If they are strangers then it cops for the full public performance fee, with a tapering relief the better you know them, with a complete dispensation for knowing them in the biblical sense!

[John Rumm]

I don't know if it was the PRS, but I recall reading once that one of the collection agencies actually distributed money to the performers not based on their individual plays etc, but based on the overall relative popularity of the artist in their list of members. Hence the Madonna's of the world would get the lions share of the money collected by the agency for plays of music recorded by up and coming new artists.