EU Rules Rental Car Companies Don't Need To Pay A License To Rent Cars With Radios That Might Play Music

Mike Masnick, reporting at TechDirt: Five years ago, we wrote about another such crazy demand -- a PRO (Performance Rights Organizations (PROs), sometimes known as "Collection Societies," that have a long history of demanding licensing for just about every damn thing) in Sweden demanding that rental car companies pay a performance license because their cars had radios, and since "the public" could rent their cards and listen to the radio, that constituted "a communication to the public" that required a separate license. The case has bounced around the courts, and finally up to the Court of Justice for the EU which has now, finally, ruled that merely renting cars does not constitute "communication to the public."

Re:don't radio stations already pay that fee?

[Dunbal]

Why limit yourself to a single serving when you can double dip. Restaurants and stores were dumb enough to accept it. MafiAA's greed knows no bounds.

Re:

[sarkarijob12]

Why limit yourself to a single serving when you can double dip. Restaurants and stores were dumb enough to accept it. MafiAA's greed knows no bounds.

Latest Job [sarkaridost.in]

PRO = Bottom dwelling scum

[JaredOfEuropa]

These PROs are leeches of the worst kind. Weird demands like this one, or the bizarre case where the Dutch PRO (Buma/Stemra) demanded royalties from a band performing their own music. The latter was a case of them performing at a charity thing or something like that. They also have decidedly nice offices, a director with generous pay, they throw parties and "music awards" galas, instead of simply hiring a couple of accountants to pay out the collected royalties to artists according to play lists and broadcast licenses. Many, many musicians here hate the PROs with a passion.

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[Sebby]

These PROs are leeches of the worst kind. Weird demands like this one, or the bizarre case where the Dutch PRO (Buma/Stemra) demanded royalties from a band performing their own music.

So a quick search of 'Buma/Stemra' results in this site [buma.com] - nice cow!

Re: PRO = Bottom dwelling scum

[jrumney]

Devin Nunes needs to sue these guys for image appropriation now!

maybe if they have something like XM?

[Joe_Dragon]

maybe if they have something like XM?

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[thegarbz]

maybe if they have something like XM?

Not a defense against this stupidity. These bottom-feeders attempt to license content played to the public. I.e. a pub can pay for Eurosport on cable, but these worthless donothings will demand a separate license to broadcast each individual sport to the public because someone other than the TV owner dares to look at the TV.

True scum of the universe.

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[LifesABeach]

Hell, if PRO types don't like it, they can go down the street to another car rental.

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[hjf]

In Argentina you're required to pay them if you organize a private party. If you rent a space, often the owner of that space is going to require proof that you paid the licensing fee, or they won't rent. Because they go after them.

They haven't tried to shut down kids birthday parties yet. I would love to see them try. It's not going to end well for them.

Really?

[nospam007]

I prefer radios that might not play music.
I want them to actually _play_ music, otherwise I'd call them audiobook-players.

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[mr.morbo]

I tuned in the radio in my car the other day and I didn't hear any actual music.

I heard advertising.

I heard some announcer and his braindead "opinion" masquerading as fact in the public echo chamber.

I heard advertising.

I heard some nondescript repetitive autotuned derivative drivel droning on.

I heard advertising.

I heard braindead "opinion" in the public echo chamber.

I heard advertising.

Nerry an actual piece of music to be heard. I don't know how they can claim that they need to be paid for the music heard o

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[David_Hart]

Nerry an actual piece of music to be heard. I don't know how they can claim that they need to be paid for the music heard on the radio.

Personally, I like 92.5 The River. It's a local independent station that actually plays music with very little interruption. However, you might or might not like it depending on your music taste. I used to listen to it on the radio until I moved. I can't get it over the air at my new house so now I stream it on Tune-in.

Who gave PRO the legal rights to charge royalties?

[misnohmer]

I agree that sounds moronic, but hey, who am I to question the wisdom of the EU government, so instead I just want to hook up to that gravy train too. Who can grant me such legal right to charge people money for what others have created with or without their permission? If music is already taken, I can find other IP to charge for, architecture perhaps, car design, whatever works.

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[fazig]

It was the individual governments of the individual countries that gave them their ridiculously stupid rights. This is something that predates the EU by a long time as it started around the beginning of the 20th century with a copyrights push around the globe.
Hence most countries around the world already had their own PROs which comparable rights. Even in the US there's organizations like ASCAP and BMI. I can only assume that this insanity then transferred into the EU, because apparently that was one thing

To what extent does this apply?

[Froggels]

To what extent does this ruling apply? Are car hire companies in the EU still subject to a licence fee for the ability to receive public broadcasting or does this ruling only apply to music? Were these companies paying two separate fees: one for music content and one for pubic broadcasting? In Germany every household and company is required to pay a mandatory fee known as the "Rundfunkbeitrag" (AKA "GEZ") for the mere possibility being able to consume public broadcasting content. This fee is mandatory even

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[fazig]

The court ruling is about PROs. GEMA is the German PRO.

Consequently this ruling can be used as a precedent when it comes to GEMA cases for car rental services, but probably not to GEZ cases.
The GEZ does not deal with communicating copyrighted work to the public. They deal with the capability of being able to receive broadcasts in Germany via radio, TV, and or the internet. And I think since 2015 (? not entirely sure on the year) they simply have every single household pay the fee regardless of whether th