RIAA strikes again...

[Sharktooth]

http://www.tcmagazine.info/comments.php?shownews=10795&catid=5

[Mr. Monte]

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer :(

[adam]

You should link to an actual news report on this not some guy's forum post. I'm not happy with this ruling either but the guy who made that post is very misinformed. (ex: playing a CD for friends in a public place is not an infringement in any country."

[SeeMoreDigital]

ex: playing a CD for friends in a public place is not an infringement in any country."Technically it can be considered "an infringement" in the UK :eek:

You have to buy a licence to play any music for listening in a public place in the UK.... These include shops, offices, telephone hold music, restaurants, cafes, pubs, clubs, hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts.... anywhere and where the general public can hear music except a private dwelling.... Not forgetting we require a TV license (which also covers listening to the radio) ;)


Cheers

[adam]

Those are commercial purposes. If you are doing that then you are not "playing a CD for friends," you are playing it for your customers. Public broadcasting requires either commercial gain or a broadcasting TO the public in a public place. Playing music for friends even in a public place is not public broadcasting unless you are talking about several hundred friends or you are charging money for it.

[int 21h]

Those are commercial purposes. If you are doing that then you are not "playing a CD for friends," you are playing it for your business. Public broadcasting requires either commercial gain or a broadcasting TO the public in a public place. Playing music for friends even in a public place is not public broadcasting unless you are talking about several hundred friends or you are charging money for it.

Or you have some sort of a sponsorship, selling advertising, etc.

[Joe Fenton]

Hmm... I found this:

Under the public performance right, a copyright holder is allowed to control when the work is performed "publicly." A performance is considered "public" when the work is performed in a "place open to the public or at a place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances are gathered." A performance is also considered to be public if it is transmitted to multiple locations, such as through television and radio. Thus, it would be a violation of the public performance right in a motion picture to rent a video and to show it in a public park or theater without obtaining a license from the copyright holder. In contrast, the performance of the video on a home TV where friends and family are gathered would not be considered a "public" performance and would not be prohibited under the Copyright Act.

I think you'd be sued (probably successfully) if you played music in public even if it was only intended to be for a few friends. It doesn't matter who you INTENDED to see it, only could POSSIBLY see it.

EDIT: Oh, that's from bitlaw, by the way.

[adam]

I really didn't mean to hijack this thread so I'm sorry... This will be my last post on this. My point was really just that the post linked to doesn't give alot of context regarding the substantive news reported. But I guess anyone can find plenty of articles on this case themself if they want to.

Joe Fenton, I did not mention intention at all. The question is not who you intend to perform for or who may possibly observe/see it, its who you actually do perform for. Performance of a musical work requires the making of it audible to others, thus the scope of your performance of a musical work is limited to those that can actually hear it. Grand Central Station may be a public place but if I'm there and only one person overhears my walkman that is not a public performance.

I can tell that the language and definitions you cited are referring to US copyright Law. Under the Legislative notes to 17 USCS 106(4) and (5) which are the sections that grant the exclusive right to performance and display of copyrighted works, it goes into great detail regarding how "performance," "display" and "public" are defined. It talks about how a public performance of a musical work generally requires use of 7 loudspeakers or more.

Unde any country's copyright laws, personal playback for you and your friends simply does not fall within the definition of "public performance" unless you physically reach that "public-sized" audience and I think this should just be a given. When you buy a CD all you are buying is a license to listen to it. If in the course of doing this others hear it incidentally you obviously cannot be sued for this.

So once again, public broadcasting requires a broadcasting TO the public. For that matter alot of countries have specific exceptions spelled out for these types of incidental dispalys.

BTW: There is TONS of caselaw on this. All of the public display/performance rulings always start with the same spiele about what the scope of a public displays is.

[shevegen]

"I think you'd be sued (probably successfully) if you played music in public even if it was only intended to be for a few friends."

Dont know where, but certainly not here. You can drive with your car, loud boxes, play any music and nothing will happen (well if you play too loud maybe people get annoyed enough...)

I'd consider this as public playing too.

[Shinigami-Sama]

all for teaching brit to sing and strip proporly :D
again to be insluted by Jobs of all people for greed realy means you should take a step back and look at your business model..