German Copyright Group To Collect From Creative Commons Event 349
bs0d3 writes "In Leipzig, Germany, an 8 hour music/dance party event was organized to play nothing but creative commons music the entire time. A German copyright group called GEMA told the organizers that to be certain that no rights were infringed, it would need a list of all artists including their full names, place of residency and date of birth. After the event GEMA sent an invoice for 200 euros. They claim that behind pseudonyms some of their artists may be hidden and produce things that they would not earn anything from. According to German law, you are required to prove that an artist is not with GEMA. So even though GEMA probably does not have rights to any of the music, they are not required to prove that they do."
Re:Privatisation of taxing (Score:5, Interesting)
Same thing in Spain. Except that the group got recently busted for a major corruption and money laundering scheme, so we might get lucky and get to see its demise. Not that I'm holding my breath that whatever replaces it will be any better.
Re:gema, a slave camp? (Score:5, Interesting)
SACEM (Score:5, Interesting)
The SACEM still sent a bill.
The treasurer of the band (not paying attention...) paid it.
After becoming aware of the error, the treasurer tried to reclaim the money, to no avail.
So, then the composer sent a letter to the SACEM, explaining to them that they had solicited money in his name, and that he wanted to have it.
A couple of weeks later, a bank transfer showed up at the band's account (not the composer's personal account) where the fee was reimbursed in full, but no explanation, nor excuse...
Probably, in the German case, it might not be so simple, as they played stuff from multiple composers, and if one composer complains, the GEMA could always claim that they solicited money on behalf of the other composers...
Re:At this point (Score:5, Interesting)
"No, I think you're wrong. Property rights are a requisite to a functioning democracy."
Copyrights aren't property rights. Copyrights are nothing but anti-property rights, telling people what they can't print/sing/say/play/etc. with their own hands and mouths and tools in their own house or place of business. Copyright law is a massive infringement of property rights.
Re:Same thing in Slovenia (Score:5, Interesting)
> I asked our beloved SAZAS about this matter. The question
> specifically was: what was your opinion on playing open-source /
> cc music in a waiting room? The reply was that since all authors
> must report to SAZAS and report their incomes and creative
> commons authors do not, such music was illegal in Slovenia.
I'd love to see that go to trial! And then to Strasbourg...
Re:Privatisation of taxing (Score:5, Interesting)
FYI, downloading is legal in Hungary for private usage (NOT software), but uploading is not. So, torrent is a gray area, but no individual has been prosecuted for private usage, yet.
Can't they just ignore the invoice? (Score:5, Interesting)
What if they don't pay? GEMA would have to take them to court, right? Is a judge really going to make them pay, without GEMA pointing out even a single song played at the event that infringed one of their artists' copyright? Is there any precedent for that in Germany?
Re:Privatisation of taxing (Score:2, Interesting)
They also have the right to tax all storage media because "they would be used for piracy anyway".
The same is true here in Canada. And the average Joe couldn't give a fuck - it's too low on their priority list.
For years, I advised against copyright violation here and in may other forums. I am still against it in most cases, but I no longer say anything.
The Canadian courts ruled that the mandatory payment of a 'levy' on recording/storage media made it legal (no copyright violation) to copy music from any source including downloading. The court ruled that the levy payment means we're paying for this right in advance. It is still not legal to upload and does not apply to other copyrighted material.
That ruling was a facepalm moment for me. We had been paying for the right to download for years, but the music industry was lying to our faces (and still does to this very day) saying that downloading music was illegal here.
Fuck them.
I now have an enormous collection of music thanks to this handy levy (prepayment) and a judge's clear thinking.
And I no longer preach against copyright violation. I hope the fucking greedy lying music industry dies an ugly horrible death and sooner rather than later.
Mankind had music before the first short fat bald asshole shoved a cigar in some kid's face and we will have it long after those lying asshole dinosaurs are dead and gone.
Can you play Germany's national anthem for free? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is beyond ridiculous. These people live outside of reality (and at our expense).
Re:GERMANY HAS NO COPYRIGHT! (Score:4, Interesting)
We have "Urheberrecht", which is like "authors' right". The privilege of the original author to get something for his work.
Then why can Urheberrecht survive the death of the author?
Pretty Much The Same in the USA (Score:4, Interesting)
Other posts say public disobedience is needed to fix this, but I think what we really need is much more public education. Most people (and I'm SURE, most Congresspeople) don't know shit about IP law. Lawmakers are happy to go along with what their industry lobby friends tell them they need. The public at large is at best woefully ignorant and at worst dangerously ignorant about what is and is not allowed under copyright. Trademark and patent law could be OK with relatively little reform. Copyright law needs a major overhaul. Until the public (and Lawmakers) realizes that, it will continue to be business as usual.
Re:gema, a slave camp? (Score:3, Interesting)
And in a weird coincidence, the band "Mutter" ("Mother") [muttermusik.de] releases all their work through their own company, "Die eigene Gesellschaft" (roughly, "Our own society/company", it has a double meaning in German), made a point of opting out of GEMA (which is super difficult, like many other posts in this story explain), and prefixes their Youtube videos with a screen that spoofs GEMA's infuriating one, which all German Youtube users know so well because it blocks the vast majority of videos which contain music for German users.
Mutter spoof [youtube.com], reading 'Due to rights held by "Our own society", this video is available at any time. Have fun'.
GEMA block screen [smartphone-apps.tk] reading, "Unfortunately this video is not available in Germany, because it might contain music for which GEMA has not granted the required rights. We are sorry about that."