How to hack off faithful customers, case #31337
Music industry drills dentists for royalties:
VANCOUVER - The tranquil music that wafts through many dental offices to soothe patients and mask the sounds of the drill may soon be silenced. The music industry is putting the bite on dentists – demanding that they pay for the right to play it.I wonder if SOCAN will also pursue ice-cream trucks, I mean surely the mesmerizing diddles being played by these shrewd robber-barons is at the expense of starving artists (with tuberculosis no less).The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, which collects royalties for musicians, has targeted dental offices in its latest campaign. The group is asking them to cough up a yearly fee if they use copyrighted music to entertain patients.
[...]
SOCAN has battled for years to get commercial and retail outlets to pay for the use of copyrighted music. Under legislation, the music played in coffee shops, clothing stores, lounges, elevators – even radio tunes that people hear on the telephone while on hold – is fair game.
SOCAN's boundless claim ultimately envelopes the totality of trade and commerce, not just the few cited in the report. What about all shopping mall tenants, not just clothing stores? Restaurants, video stores, tanning salons, bars, athletic events, bowling alleys, toupee parlors, arcades, bike shops, slushie stands, cotton-candy kiosks, ad infinitum. Simply imagine the number of commercial establishments you patronize in a given week and realize that organizations like SOCAN see a ginormous jackpot ripe for the picking.
And perhaps a federal agency similar to the DEA should be established to wage war on these unscrupulous copyright violators.
Note: RIAA Demands End to Unauthorized Humming, Whistling.
Via Slashdot.
Comments (10)
MEMBower
Doesn't sound very 1337 to me... :)
Published: July 26, 2004 8:41 AM
Brad Dexter
Interesting data point in the heart of the grey area on intangible property. When should rights be protected and what is 'public domain', and when is there a blending of the two? Obviously humming and whistling is not, nor will be, sanctioned, unless there is a commercial gain made. The exceptions to commercial gain of course if it is being satirized in some way, then a 'new' product is deemed to have been created, and license is given. As long as the product is taken, and a unearned gain obtained, then there is a right to be made whole. If the dentist's profit can be shown to increase if music is used, then the music producers might have a point. Not that people volunteer to go to the dentist just for the music, but if it can be clearly shown that the use of music is substantially enhancing to the dnetist's bottom line, then I think they should have to part with some of the profits they make. If it can't be shown, or is not material to the bottom line, then no fee should be demanded.
Published: July 26, 2004 9:59 AM
Mike D.
What is the prevailing Austrian view on Patents and Copyright? Libertarians recognize tangible property rights, but what about intellectual property rights?
What strikes me as interesting here is the parallel with what is termed "music piracy", and the so-called cost of prescription drug program. Both the music industry and the pharmaceutical industry share, for the most part, a common marginal cost structure. (What came as a shock to me was that for prescription medication, the cost per pill is roughly constant, about $1.35 per pill, which incidentally is the same as a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and is often independent of the medication dose! 100 5mg pills cost the same as 100 10mg pills or 100 20mg pills for the same medication. The reason is that we are paying for the R&D, and FDA Clinical Trials and not for the active ingredients, which are essentially produced at zero cost.)
The music industry has the same marginal cost structure. (The film industry, on the other hand, does have costs that can run into the millions).
Now that we have high speed internet downloads and CD burners, music can be reproduced at zero cost. Consumers have learned to use services like Napster or Kazaa to bypass the music industry.
Napster has been shut down, but the music industry is now a targeting individuals. Congress has passed special interest laws to protect the music industry.
Now contrast the treatment of pharmaceutical companies. Politicians want to become the Napsters and Kazaas of the pharmaceutical industry. The Pharmaceutical industry is being vilified as greedy and heartless. At this point we're back to Britain after WWII. Certain things were classified as necessities and the industries producing them were nationalized. The railways, bus companies, coal industry, coal/natural gas, healthcare, dental care, electricity were among those nationalized "because it would be immoral for people make a profit on basic needs".
The Ted Kennedy’s of the world want to confiscate and redistribute the (intellectual) property of the pharmaceutical companies. His justification for this is the same as the internet pirates - the pharmaceutical are charging "rip-off" prices for their products. Why is it OK to re-import drugs from Canada but wrong to import bootleg CD’s and DVD’s from China?
Why does a patent law that expires after 7 years on a product that cost millions to develop and certify "distort the market" whereas a copyright law that applies indefinitely to a product that costs very little to develop is OK?
When all is said and done, what is the track record of socialized systems in bringing new pharmaceutical products to market?
Published: July 26, 2004 10:31 AM
Jeffrey Tucker
IP is a huge topic but here is a summary blog(Link) by Kinsella that puts together all important links.
Published: July 26, 2004 11:44 AM
Duodecimal
JibJab's "This Land" parody is now under attack by the current copyright holders of Woody Guthrie's song.
As the links in the Kinsella blog entry describe, basic natural rights are violated when false rights are enforced by the state. They prohibit peacable actions one may take with one's own property and body - so these statutory rights granted by patents and copyrights nullify the natural rights inherent to our existence.
Published: July 27, 2004 7:32 AM
Curt Howland
Ted Kennedy's motivation is re-election, nothing more. Ok, maybe placating the Old Friends so they don't kill him, too.
I agree that intellectual property is a big issue, but I don't think it's insurmountable to the "free" market.
For instance, the copy of The Lord Of The Rings that was being sold in the US before there was a US license for the book. Once there was a "legal" copy being sold, the "illegal" one was dropped out of respect for the author, not just fear of prosecution.
The same thing happens constantly in a field I enjoy, Japanese cartoons. When there isn't a version available in a particular language, fans of the show will subtitle it and make it available for free. When it is legally released in that language, English being the biggest market but I've seen Spanish and French too, the "fan subtitled" versions are removed from circulation. Again, this is done more in respect than for fear of prosecution.
There are a few individuals who try to sell copies of the fan subtitled works, but they are universally decried and scorned by the community whenever they are found.
These are not Robin Hoods, they are pirates, recognized as thieves not for merely copying but for trying to make a profit doing it.
Open Source software is another example of measurable production costs compared to near zero costs of reproduction. Yet, just like Tolkien, respect for the authors is a source of both monetary reward and renown. People who are known to produce good work are hired for their demonstrated expertise. Service and support are where the profits are being made. They give away the razor, and sell the blades.
Why buy just any bearing oiler when you can have the Real McCoy!
It is my opinion that the drug companies do not want the FDA abolished, because they would then have competition. Because of the FDA monopoly, "monopoly prices" can be charged for what we know has low reproduction costs.
This is the same with the music companies. The artists don't lose much money, it's the huge distributors who are trying to make money off the reproduction of something that has near zero reproduction costs.
Published: July 27, 2004 8:43 AM
Francisco Torres
Maybe the dentists should play classical music... The copyright on such has expired a long time ago.
The idea is to leave all those composers trying to make a quick buck with their product on the shelf, forever. Let's see how long it takes for them to realize that it is the CONSUMER who has the power, not them.
Published: July 27, 2004 2:33 PM
Scott
Next thing you know the MPAA will be after my dentist for showing Movies during long procedures.
Published: July 28, 2004 2:59 AM
Craig
SOCAN may be biting the hand that feeds them. Have they heard of the word "promotion"?Advertisers would kill to have a contained audience for a half hour.
I,ve often heard music in businesses and either remind myself that this is something I would like to purchase or even inquire to what's playing because it's new to me.
What happens when I attend a friends house and they plays recorded music for my entertainment? Burn them at the stake?
There must be a distinction between businesses who directly make money from playing music whereas the customer stays for an extended length of time (and keeps spending money) and a business who makes money unrelated to music - (filling cavities).
Also, anyone who owns a car with a sub woofer should pay a $20,000 dollar tax for sharing their music with the entire block.
Thank you
Published: March 18, 2006 9:17 AM
linda
My dentist doesn't use canned music. He plays the radio in the background and we all hum along with the song in rhythm to the drill. Then I make guttural sounds in agreement or disagreement with whatever news story they are playing at the time. Oh, the joys of nitrous oxide...
Published: July 15, 2007 8:58 PM