An Auto-Shop is Being Sued by the Music Industry for Allowing Their Employees to Listen to the Radio at Work...

So this means that if the neighbors can hear your radio you can be sued for copyright infringement this is bloody crazy. How can they do that?

If you don't want "customers and other people" to hear the music-- don't broadcast it.

As long as the car repair shop hasn't set up a system for playing the music over company speakers for the purpose of entertaining the customers, it's likely the music industry group can't win. Personal radios are personal radios.

Playing a radio station over any type of PA system or where it can otherwise be heard by more than one person has violated copyright law for as long as I can remember. It is fine for one person to bring a radio to work and listen to it for personal purposes, but when the intent is to "broadcast" it where other coworkers can hear it, that's a problem. When I worked as a radio dj (for 2 years) we could encourage people to listen to our station at work but we couldn't encourage them to play our station over the PA system. It is also a violation of copyright law to play a radio station as your on-hold music. This has always been spelled out in copyright law but enforcement has been decidedly lax.

There are alot of businesses that use the radio over their PA system....

Call me an idealist but doesn't all this seem contrary to the spirit in which these songs were written and performed?

I wonder how many of the artists represented by the licensing organization would approve of this approach.

Of course, they may all be whole-heartedly in support of the suit. I don't know...

Now what they need to do is start suing anyone who has a pop music ringtone that rings where i can hear it. i will gladly turn them in!.

In the UK it is not allowed to play the radio in stores and so on. it has been like that for a long time.

Seems in north America (here in Toronto anyways) they are much more lax about it. its quite funny going into a store and hearing a commercial for the competition.

Listeners are not responsible for paying royalties, the broadcasting entity does that; you don't pay for hearing music, you pay for playing music. To listen to music on the radio is not the same as broadcasting music on the radio; therefore, it can be safely assumed that radio stations broadcasting the music heard on these radios are already paying the required royalties, so, in fact PRS is in violation of copyright and marketing laws by unjustly interfering with musician rights to sell their music in the open market, while breaking censorship laws by bringing class action against the mechanics, who, surely by any law, indeed, have the right to listen to music in a radio broadcast.

If this is allowed to prevail, then all the music on hold will have to stop. Does this mean I can send the license plate number of the guy with the booming music that rocks my car at the stop light to the RIAA?

I don't know U.K. law, and I am pretty rabidly anti-RIAA and pro-free speech, but just a different thought: If I were a customer who could hear the radios being played, and the program were offensive, I would complain to the company. The company would respond. They can't divorce themselves from the event if they knowingly allow it. Since the report is that this is common in their shops, then it could be seen as routinely allowed by the company. Could work for them or against them. How would the law apply if the workers were listening to CDs they'd purchased, or an iPod playing legally downloaded files?

I think the royalties were paid by the broadcaster and should not need to be paid again by people who are only listening. But I've been wrong before.

Absurd.

The content is licensed to the radio stations for commercial redistribution. The record companies get royalties on the basis of audience size, etc.

What to they think broadcasting is?

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, next they will be trying to sue every person who has a radio in thier car and some one else hears the music. My question is: If the music is broadcast over a radio is it not intended foer all to hear, royalty free?

Reading this just now makes my blood pressure raise the same as it did more than twenty years ago in New Orleans!

My wife used to be the practice manager for a pediatric group of 6 doctors in a practice that started with one doctor. Even the new building was very family with doctors and staff knowing all the patents and many times the extended family. Going to the doctor was like going to visit family friends. At the period in radio/music time at least in most of the South, the several popular stations in each major city had competing morning or afternoon programs MC'd by various radio personalities who you were vary entertained and engaged by, but would not likely get along with on a personal basis. These radio personalities as they came to be known were part and parcel of the radio stations marketing scheme. So much so that they would come to various business semi unannounced with gifts and propaganda persuading the victim/business all the benefits that would shower down in burst of changing fortunes to the better just by playing this station and of course their show over the system in the business (this case the waiting room etc. Never a mention of fees, license, gifts too… nothing!
So my wife choose what she though most would like and what she could put up with all day and TALK/GAGS/music/COMERCIALS/"/"/"/TALK/music played all day every business day and the Radio Station even came by and gave them a plaque with some verbiage about thank you for your support etc, etc.

A few months later a strange ex hippy/lounge lizard in a sharp but glowingly cheap suit shows up and needs to speak to the manager. He was the "ASCAP" representative who was just there to inform them that it was illegal to play radio broad casts for public consumption and there were fees to be paid for licenses to be granted. My wife asked "who are you and what is ASCAP?" He gave his name and a business card and went on to explain it was an association that protected less successful musicians by paying them a portion of the fees collected to cover for the fact that in the old days musicians were not treated fairly most time cheated out of their royalties. The practice managers reply we will look in to this. After a week or so calling the radio station, getting the attorney for the practice to check things out it was established that the ASCAP people did have the right to do as the fellow had said. The time it took to figure out if it was real or just a shakedown lead to two ASCAP people showing up and deciding that the practice was stalling or refusing to pay and brought up that they could take them to court and they could be fined for not complying from the start-remember the plaque, it had a date! In the end my wife was not happy and made an official statement that they would not play the radio but would not pay a fine for having done so as they had played the radio station as part of their promotion.
The ASCAP people came to inspect a few times after that and my wife finally had to post notices that now radios or music could be played inside the building.

I did not think it was right then and I still don't now-if it is public radio it is public radio period. All fees and licenses are paid by the broadcasting company and we pay having to suffer through the advertisements. By listening to public radio we agree to let advertisers invade our personal space in exchange for hearing a bit of music.

That just my thought on it.

Maybe when I drive around I should have to feed dollar-bills into my radio or have it sucked off of my credit card.

For all the money that is spent tracking down these so-called infringements, I just don't see how it benefits the artists that create it. It makes them look like Wiseguys that are taxing anyone within earshot. Imagine:

Eh, did you hear that?
What? That song on the radio? Yea, I heard it.
Did you like it?
Yea, it was...
Ok, Ok, pay up buddy or I'll sue your a##.
(Ouch!)

The music business just does not get it. Bullies.

I can understand a bar, cafe, or other gathering place-for profit being charged royalty fees {or whatever they call it}, but guys working on cars? As bad as things are in the states, I can't believe this is one thing we'll get slapped with. Listening to the new radio here, or CDs, at work, is as American as apple pie and pizza. After decades of the music industry being consolidated, homogenized, and commoditized, it's become a bloated machine which tends to run over talent and creativity. Their creativity seems confined to coming up with new ways to charge more. A music's popularity has more to do with the extent it's played for wider audiences, than simply the specific number of CDs or downloads sold. This is why "Best Of" CDs can be sold years down the road, long after a band or singer has stopped cranking out the "hits". It's why some songs are played over and over on FM when in fact they never sold well originally. Music industry practices will have to change as technologies change, just like every other industry. "Unfortunately", Lawyers may need to be laid off as the biz comes to terms with real competition for the ears of consumers.

so, I'm sitting at the stoplight and someone next to me is playing their radio really loud, do they owe somebody money because I heard it, even if I didn't want to?