Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ASCAP are a bunch of asshats

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    ASCAP are a bunch of asshats

    ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings | Electronic Frontier Foundation

    ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings
    Legal Analysis by Fred von Lohmann

    ASCAP (the same folks who went after Girl Scouts for singing around a campfire) appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by "publicly performing" it without a license. At least that's the import of a brief [2.5mb PDF] it filed in ASCAP's court battle with mobile phone giant AT&T.

    This will doubtless come as a shock to the millions of Americans who have legitimately purchased musical ringtones, contributing millions to the music industry's bottom line. Are we each liable for statutory damages (say, $80,000) if we forget to silence our phones in a restaurant?

    ASCAP's outlandish claim is part of its battle with major mobile carriers (including Verizon and AT&T) over whether ASCAP is owed any money for "public performances" of the musical ringtones sold by the carriers. The carriers point out that the owners of the musical compositions (i.e., songwriters and music publishers) are already paid for each ringtone download, but ASCAP claims that it's owed another royalty for the "public performances" (i.e., ringing in a restaurant) of those same ringtones.

    Fortunately, ASCAP is wrong. Even if the incidental mobile phone playback of a short snippet in a public place were viewed as a "public performance" (something no court has ever held, and that would also put you in jeopardy for playing your car radio with the window down), the Copyright Act has a specific exception, 17 U.S.C. 110(4), that covers performances made "without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage." That should take care of ringtones going off in the restaurant.

    Confronted with Section 110(4), ASCAP makes an even more dangerous and wrongheaded argument -- that the carrier cannot "stand in the shoes of its customer" when asserting a copyright defense like Section 110(4). In other words, because AT&T is in the ringtone business for the money, it's on the hook even if the customer isn't.

    To appreciate how anti-consumer this argument is, consider what it would mean in practice. Congress has decided that many activities should be beyond the reach of copyright law, including not only the performances covered by Section 110(4), but also fair use and first sale, among other things. It's thanks to these exceptions and limitations that libraries can lend books, you can use a TiVo, and Apple can sell iPods to help you get the most from your CD collection. ASCAP is arguing, however, that just because you can't be held liable for copyright infringement for these things, a copyright owner could still sue any technology company that helps you enjoy your rights under copyright law.

    Fortunately for consumers, ASCAP's theory is foreclosed by the Sony Betamax ruling, where the Supreme Court held that because it's a fair use for you to time-shift TV, it's also perfectly legal for Sony to sell you a VCR to do it. Sony did not have to run a second fair use gauntlet for its commercial VCR-selling business.

    In short, if there's no infringement liability for the customer, there can be no secondary liability for the carriers. (ASCAP also has a theory that the carriers are direct infringers because they set up the system that causes phones to ring in public, but that theory is pretty handily wiped out by the recent Cablevision ruling, where the court found that setting up a "remote DVR" service doesn't make you a direct infringer when your customers use it.)

    Or, put another way, if it's noninfringing for you, it's also noninfringing for a technology company to provide you with the means to do it.
    [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/Igorod/troopdod.jpg[/img]
    [url=http://profile.xfire.com/trooper110][img]http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/co/type/1/trooper110.png[/img][/url]

    #2
    What a load of greed crap
    [IMG]http://thepebkac.net/images/sigs/Outdoors_sig.jpg[/IMG]
    Like the community? Donate here:
    [URL="http://www.cainslair.com/misc.php?do=donate"]http://www.cainslair.com/misc.php?do=donate[/URL]

    Comment


      #3
      This will not affect me ever. I hate ringing phones. My phone stays on vibrate 24/7.
      Even so, they are idiots.
      Apache

      Where do you put the Bayonet?
      Chesty Puller (upon seeing a flamethrower for the first time)
      I am all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Lets start with typewriters.
      Frank Lloyd Wright

      Comment


        #4
        ash-hole
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggIl-...eature=related

        Comment


          #5
          The problem here that cannot be overlooked is that they waited too long to act. You cannot address a problem that you have accepted without objection for several years.

          Thats just not how the world works in the US. If you dont give permission to someone to use your car, but know he gets into it and drives it everyday, there is a reasonable amount of time where because you didnt act on objection, you have given permission through inactivity.

          Ringtones have been around for more than a few years. At this point they have a serious uphill battle.

          Comment

          Cain's Lair Forums Statistics

          Collapse

          Topics: 26,188   Posts: 269,861   Members: 6,183   Active Members: 4
          Welcome to our newest member, Fermin13Q.

          Today's Birthdays

          Collapse

          There are no members with birthdays today.

          Top Active Users

          Collapse

          There are no top active users.

          More Posts

          Collapse

          • Reply to hey yall!
            by Sirex
            All sorted now, even updated the email on the account.

            Been quite a few of us catching up in the discord the last few days ...
            7 Mar 2025, 10:03 AM
          • Reply to hey yall!
            by Pidgeot_Girl
            Glad to hear you're doing well Apache and congratulations on the business!! Only thing I'm playing is BO6 these days on the weekends!
            2 Mar 2025, 01:55 PM
          • Reply to hey yall!
            by Apache Warrior
            Sirex should be able to recover his log in and change the password. He would then login and change the password.
            I am not playing anything right...
            2 Mar 2025, 09:04 AM
          • Reply to Hi guys!
            by Pidgeot_Girl
            Mostly playing good ol CoD BO6 on the PS5 (old habits die hard), I'll dabble into a little bit of Fallout 4. But I'm pretty much a weekend warrior, my...
            1 Mar 2025, 07:24 PM
          • Reply to hey yall!
            by Pidgeot_Girl
            Sirex!!! I will let him know! He cant remember his log in anymore but he wonders how everyone in the lair is doing, and hope everyone is doing well. Also...
            1 Mar 2025, 05:19 PM
          • Reply to hey yall!
            by Sirex
            :O hey Pidgeot!

            Long time no see and congrats on EVERYTHING!
            Good to hear all that wonderful news and I know what its like having...
            23 Feb 2025, 06:31 PM
          Working...
          X