Kwik-Fit sued over staff radios by the RIAA (UK version)

[SUBMAN1]

In my crystal ball, I see Steed having a field day! :p

-S

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/s...st/7029892.stm

A car repair firm has been taken to court accused of infringing musical copyright because its employees listen to radios at work.

The action against the Kwik-Fit Group has been brought by the Performing Rights Society which collects royalties for songwriters and performers.

At a procedural hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh a judge refused to dismiss the £200,000 damages claim.

Kwik-Fit wanted the case brought against it thrown out.

Lord Emslie ruled that the action can go ahead with evidence being heard.

The PRS claimed that Kwik-Fit mechanics routinely use personal radios while working at service centres across the UK and that music, protected by copyright, could be heard by colleagues and customers.

It is maintained that amounts to the "playing" or "performance" of the music in public and renders the firm guilty of infringing copyright.

The Edinburgh-based firm, founded by Sir Tom Farmer, is contesting the action and said it has a 10 year policy banning the use of personal radios in the workplace.

Playing music
The PRS lodged details of countrywide inspection data over the audible playing of music at Kwik-Fit on more than 250 occasions in and after 2005.

It claimed that its pleadings in the action were more than enough to allow a hearing of evidence in the case at which they would expect to establish everything allegedly found and recorded at inspection visits.

Lord Emslie said: "The key point to note, it was said, was that the findings on each occasion were the same with music audibly 'blaring' from employee's radios in such circumstances that the defenders' [Kwik-Fit] local and central management could not have failed to be aware of what was going on."

The judge said: "The allegations are of a widespread and consistent picture emerging over many years whereby routine copyright infringement in the workplace was, or inferentially must have been, known to and 'authorised' or 'permitted' by local and central management."

He said that if that was established after evidence it was "at least possible" that liability for copyright infringement would be brought home against Kwik-Fit.

But Lord Emslie said he should not be taken as accepting that the PRS would necessarily succeed in their claims.

[Letum]

[antikristuseke]

This is a joke, right?
If not this has got to take "the stupidest thing i have heard all week" award.

One of the record companies tried the same thing on here in Australia a few years back- Got laughed out of court

[HunterICX]

I,m just pissing myself laughing about this.....:rotfl:

really, it surprises me, they try to be serious over this.
while it doesnt make any sense at all.
then trial everyone that has a radio or telly as there might be a chance others hear you.

heck...let them spend this amount of time on real crimes

[JALU3]

If they succeed and bring this type of legal logic to other nation-states . . . it would be the death to music of anykind in public . . . imagine radio stations . . . being sued because they only bought the rights to play the music to individuals who worked for that specific company.
Or stations having to pay record companies a fraction of what one would pay at a concert to be able to play a single song.
This would lead to record companies owning radio stations.

[lesrae]

I've got a friend who works for the PRS, she goes round pubs that aren't registered and sits around for a while to see if they've got music playing. I couldn't do that job, or at least I'd need a driver after the first couple of hours :O)

Remember that the PRS are non-profit and the money goes to the writer composer etc. For more info see this site, which includes info on their fees: http://www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx

[Jimbuna]

This was tried a long while back in hair salons in northern England....but to little effect. It cost more to prosecute than the punitive fines were worth

[XabbaRus]

So what happens to every tradesman in the UK doing a job. Where I work there is always a radio on in a cabin somewhere....

[VipertheSniper]

This is ridiculous, I mean that's like the police driving behind you after you've done something wrong waiting for you to do something more wrong, so they can give you a hefty fine. They have to pull you over after the first infraction. I mean it's not like it wasn't a copyright infringement the first time they were hearing the radios run at one of those Kwik-fit shops, but only after the what? 250th time, you've got to be kidding me.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

In my crystal ball, I see Steed having a field day! :p

Am I so predictable? :rotfl:

[CB..]

aint they ever heard of the concept of free advertising for their products??
that's what a radio station is....one long advertisment for the products of the record industry...hell if they don't want free advertising then let them pay like every-body else..Kwik fit should be sue-ing them...not the other way round..

it's a bunch of psycho-junk power tripping up yer own arse b*llocks (scuse the language)

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by STEED

Am I so predictable? :rotfl:

Seems so!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

So what happens to every tradesman in the UK doing a job. Where I work there is always a radio on in a cabin somewhere....

It would be impossible to enforce right across the country

Anyone getting caught and prosecuted must consider themselves extremely unlucky

Just had a thought on this - Is it me or does this seem to be Double Dipping? , the Radio station has already paid royalties/licence fee's to broadcast the music ,now the music industry types are saying that you have to pay again to listen to something thats being publicly broadcast/performed (in their words) anyway