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Bar Performer Arrested For Copyright Violations
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Nov 09, 2006 09:18 AM
from the sieze-his-harmonica dept.
from the sieze-his-harmonica dept.
Edis Krad writes, "An elderly Japanese bar manager and performer has been arrested for playing copyrighted songs on his harmonica. From the article: 'Investigators accuse Toyoda of illegally performing 33 songs such as the Beatles' songs "Here, There and Everywhere" and "Yesterday," whose copyrights are managed by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. He allegedly performed the songs on the harmonica with a female pianist at the bar he operated between August and September this year.' This is for all those kids who are learning chords on their guitars — be ready to pay fees for practicing 'Smoke On The Water.' This story seems to be legit, though it reads like an Onion piece. It's only being reported in the Mainichi Daily News via MSN.
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Fixme: Slashdot threading is broken (Score:3, Informative)
It appears as though the threading code has broken since the comments went over id 16777215 (ie limit of 24bit numbers)
The comments themselves are being added, but the internal link back to its parent has gone up the swanny.
Is a 24bit value an acceptable database field length or is this a code problem?
RIAA lovin' it (Score:5, Interesting)
Serves him right (Score:5, Insightful)
Stealing from poor, hardworking, underpaid, struggling artists like mulit-multi-millionaire Sir Paul.
Not quite kids with guitars (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the guitar-playing kids are imposing a cover charge when playing for Aunt Sally, I think they are free from worry...
Not all bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Every cloud has a silver lining....
No "Stairway!" (Score:5, Funny)
I'm highlyl skeptical (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds too much like a joke. In theory, this is supposed to be impossible. In the USA, and one would presume Japan as well, bars/nightclubs are responsible for paying fees to composer societies (this includes ASCAP and BMI in the USA) to cover exactly this sort of thing - a performer performing copywritten material. In the USA I've heard of ASCAP and BMI going after bars and nightclubs who didn't pay them money, but never performers. Again, I can't speak for Japanese law, but in the USA it is clear that it is the owner of the performance venue, not the artist, who has to pay this fee.
Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
Parody? (Score:5, Funny)
An old geezer on harmonica and a underage Japanese school girl on piano?
Paranoid Slashdot Readership: Totally offtopic (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Crazy... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like if he recorded what he's playing and then sell it on it would risk losing sales to the original artists.
His actions had zero impact on sales for those artists/labels in the unlikely event it had any impact at all it would have been slightly positive (e.g. someone gets tune stuck in their head and seeks out the original).
Okay now this seems silly (Score:5, Interesting)
HOAX! (Score:4, Interesting)
C'mon, Slashdot should know better than to fall for these things...
Re: (Score:2)
Any band that performs a number written by someone else is expected to have paid a use fee to the writter.
Now the obvious difference between someone practicing and someone performing for pay is - no money involved in the first instance. So I buy a piece of sheet music - this
Ditto for me (Score:2)
bars in the US have to pay (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
A few monthes ago, some children sang for the retirement celebration of a teacher (so nothing business-related), and the SACEM (french RIAA) sued the school in the name of the protection of the autors. In the end, the song author himself paid the fine to put an end to that BS (and avoid sharing the bad press). Of course, it was never planned that he may get a single cent from the fine.
Never mind the music... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
1) The performer in this case is also the owner.
2) He wasn't paying his Japanese-ASCAP-equivalent tab at all, not just violating some Beatles-specific issue.
The whole thing sounds like a straightforward copyright violation case with the added comedy value of "elderly Japanese man". (Apparently the equivalent of our "single mothers", who are also presumed to be above copyright law.)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm having the same problem as LiquidCooled (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Sue or sue not. There is no try. (Score:2)
Don't let Lucasfilm know. They'll sue the harmonica player over his name. If that won't get him, the car company will. Followed by the sewing machine company.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you find any references to theft or stealing in the article? I didn't. Looks like nobody is even accusing him of stealing.
ATTN: Benhocking (Score:2, Informative)
I think people aren't noticing it, but they will.
Damn annoying when a technical fault occurs, and no I don't know why its marked as troll either.
Re: (Score:2)
Video... of the bar... (Score:2)
http://news.tbs.co.jp/ram/news3420997_11.ram [tbs.co.jp]
http://news.tbs.co.jp/asx/news3420997_12.asx [tbs.co.jp]
He says he didn't have the money to pay off the JASRAC [jasrac.or.jp] mafia for da rights ya see.
Re: (Score:2)
He was both (Score:2)
the owner of the venue and the performer..
maybe they sued his 'operator' hat, not his 'performer' hat.
Good news, everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)
Classical music (Score:2, Funny)
Simple solution: stop listening to this newfangled "rock and roll" stuff and just focus on classical. Haydn and Mozart's copyrights ran out long ago, so you can practice and perform their work for free. (Granted, some of the newer classical stuff is still under copyright, but it mostly sucks anyway.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Right, I think the issue is not his playing, but his owning an establishment where protected music is played. This little "trick" is why more musicians are not up in arms over how copyrights are operated. Musicians are generally not responsible for paying royalties on songs they cover live.
Now if the musicians were
Free Culture (Score:5, Interesting)
But this brings up an excellent point. In a culture where all intellectual "property" is owned, can we be far from though crimes by just humming a song?
The irony is thick here. George Harrison, a member of the Beatles, was sued and lost for unintentionally copying "My Sweet Lord" from the Chiffons' song "He's So Fine" [wikipedia.org]. It was a major blow to Harrison.
The problem is that the record companies that own the copyrights own monopolies on rights, and can conceivably charge as much as they want for these rights. The arms race has already started for movie licenses for songs. In the commentary for the Blues Brother's, John Landis comments that a movie of this type will probably never be made again, because the astronomical cost of music licensing.
The only conceivable long term solution is free culture. Society will still find ways to reward authors for their contributions without the current licensing nightmare. That is the only way culture will be able to keep evolving. The mix-ups, mash-downs, movies and cultural references in the future depend on having unencumbered source material. And the more the copyrights holders squeeze, the quicker this will happen.
What's the big deal? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course you do. If you didn't, then why would you write the music?
"Copyright" is not a monolithic right -- it is a bundle of individual rights that includes the right to copy, the right to prepare derivative works and, important here, the right to perform the work publicly. Non-public "performances", like playing in your garage or humming, are excluded.
There was a post questioning whether the performer or the bar should be liable. In general, the performer is directly liable for the infringement -- he's performing it publicly. But, because the bar owner could have prevented the infringement, but didn't and instead profited from it, the bar owner is probably liable as well. (It's called 'vicarious infringement.') Mainly for convenience, ASCAP and others typically deal with the bar owners rather than the performers.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I hope the RIIA clamps onto this and tries even more draconian BS... maybe then the public will wake up or look away from their tv's long enough to be slightly outraged.
This Is Not The First Time Either.... (Score:5, Funny)
Trademark (Score:4, Funny)
The Long Arm of the RIAA (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, that's the way it's supposed to work. In practice, many venues, especially smaller ones, don't even bother sending in their royalty subscriptions. And BMI/ASCAP don't represent all artists - SOCAN represents lots of Canadian artists, there are other even tinier agencies with their own exclusive artist list, and of course many smaller-producing artists don't register with any agency. The venues that do report usually don't report the random samples. When they do, they often just make them up. And of course those samples are not really random, or represent their total performance lists, except in venues which play the same 5 songs over and again (there are certainly too many of those). But artists with fewer repeats get left out of the sample, and the biggest artists obviously get even more favoritism, and therefore much more royalties - the little ones get some random trickle, if anything. And then the agencies often don't pay their artists, who have no way to know how much they're being cheated, while the agencies keep a much larger percentage of the collected royalties than necessary, for supporting their fat, lazy, lying, cheating, stealing corporations and shareholders. And then there are the gangs that blackmail venues by threatening them with "royalty enforcement" (which can stop their music activities), no matter what their compliance, if the venue doesn't pay the gang the extra bribes - while the gang pockets any legit payments instead of sending it to the agencies.
I've worked in and with the music industry for over 20 years. Including some of the biggest promoters/producers in the US. Some of my best friends still make their living in the criminal music industry, mostly musicians, but some venue owners/operators and some even label execs. They prefer the European model, which is mostly the same, but which at least requires the venue to report every song played. Which at least starts with a more fair requirement, but which is abused about as much as in the US.
The industry wants everyone moved to a blanket license - covering everyone, even if not a "bulk rate". Their holy grail is music recognition software, which reports every person/place's performance for network royalty payments. When they can, they will make everyone's phones monitor everyone all the time, reporting any music we perform and taxing us. That includes playing recordings, pianos, singing in the shower, "Happy Birthday"©, gospel in church, probably even air guitar. All tracked, charged, stored, datamined, and used to micromarket everything to you, along with your favorite songs.
Since... (Score:5, Informative)
- The guy arrested had been running the bar and doing live performances there since 1981.
- JASRAC had approached him repeatedly since 2001 to cough up the required fees for his performances (just like every other bar, club, pub and watering hole in Japan).
- He had continually refused to pay those fees.
- In Japan, copyright infringement is covered by both civil and criminal law.
- JASRAC went to the police and asked them to enforce the law.
That's about it. He knew what the law is, and he kept on breaking it, so he got arrested.
I can almost hear that poor guy singing... (Score:5, Funny)
Car Company Gets on Board For Trademark Violation (Score:3, Funny)
Toyota motor company sued as well, claiming that playing bad harmonica under the name "Toyoda" qualifies as defamation of character and slander.
Re:I'm highlyl skeptical (Score:3, Interesting)
This is true, and the reason for the dumbest laws of them all. As a guitarist, a musician can not go into an establishment and start playing. By law even. Becuase regardless of what your playing, public domain, copyrighted, or personal compositions/arrangments et al. the owner of the establishment is legally liable. This is why you always see street performers, out in the cold, rather than in a cozy coffee shop sipping a coffee inbetween measures.
While there are places where one can randomly play, the numbers just aren't sufficient. Very very few coffee shops permit a random musician to play at their whim while on site. Also, music stores obviously have to pay some sort of license or have legal ability for the fact that most musicians won't purchase an instrument without playing it first. Then we run into the disconcerting fact of a general music shop on a busy day... regardless of how good everyone is, none of them are in rhythm or harmony with the next making the entire experience rather discordant. So even if there are ways around it, and while some places do permit such acts, they aren't spread out enough where it's pleasant for patrons and musicians to just casually sit down and pluck a few strings whenever they get the itching too.
What is interesting, is sometimes it's not so easy to determine if you can play your instrument in public. Some vast and open parks are actually private property... and here we go again. If a sizeable congregation forms due to your playing... cops might construe it (regardless of technicalities) as a concert or formal performance and you have to have this license, that permission... all kinds of crap. You get penalized, if you are actually good but aren't serving to fatten some super affluent socio-path (i.e. Major Record Labels). Society generally penalizings where you can play if you aren't good... and if you are merely "tolerable" then and only then are you OK.
There used to be a very good singer that would perform on the street corner down town San Diego near Horton Plaza years ago. The only real problem, was that he was of "professional" calibur... people actually enjoyed listening to him. And, as a musican, I must concede to the mans skills. Becuase he was very good, becuase he did make plenty of money on the street corner (and lots of it), becuase people would clap, and stand for a moment to catch the next verse... he was arrested for illegal performance or somethign of that nature and I never saw him since. Meanwhile, lots of medocre musicians up and down the same street are left unbothered.
Not the first time it happens (Score:4, Informative)
During the departure party of a retiring school teacher, a choral of 6 years old kids sang a french song which title would litterally translate to "Goodbye mister professor" (the choice of this song was for obvious reason).
No money was ever involved in this case and the only audiance was composed of parents and teachers. Unfortunately since it happened in a very small town, the story was related in a very local newspaper and reached the hear of the music copyright nazies around here, the SACEM.
The school was fined a couple of hundred euros for having performed "copyrighted" music in public without authorization.
Ironically, when the very writer and performer of this song heard of this sinister joke he decided that he'd be paying the fine in place of the school...
PS: Appologies if this post ever appears a second time but threaded answers seem to be foobar.
important points of TFA (Score:5, Informative)
I'm strongly against police raid to curb copyright violators, but I agree that if a restraining order is in place, then you better think twice before you do it again.
The issue here is if a court should ever grant restraining order on copyright violations, but it doesn't look like Toyoda bothered to contest it at all.
This machine infringes copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
So a harmonica has become an instrument of copyright infringement now? And at a criminal level? If he were passing out sheet music or recordings of the original songs that's one thing, but just (as per the featured article) playing music himself? Even though much of that music wasn't even arranged for the harmonica? There's gotta be something more to this. Failure to pay royalty fees or some such ...
Woody Guthrie once put the legend "This machine kills fascists" on his guitar, amazing how things have changed since them...
Re:Okay now this seems silly (Score:3, Informative)
That may not be true in all countries. In for example Sweden (and indeed most of Europe), it's a criminal offense.
Why is this even a story? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this somehow different because he's Japanese? Elderly? Using a harmonica? Someone clue me in here.
Oh, right, it's because of some vague, imagined connection to DRM or some other fantasy of
ASCAP is almost 100 years old, and BMI is nearly 50. They have *thousands* of court cases, based on hundreds of years of precedent in common law, that solidify their rights. The right, for example, to collect fees for performance of its members' works. You have a problem with that? Go live somewhere it ain't so. Somewhere like... well, nowhere, really.