A car repair firm is being sued for infringing musical copyright because its employees listen to radios at work!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7029892.stm


Kwik-Fit sued over staff radios

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.

So, if someone else can hear your music, it qualifies as a public performance?

What if more than one person is in your car and you play the radio or pop in a CD? Or, God forbid, your car windows are down....

How far are certain groups/record labels going to go before we finally say enough is enough?

I have to say, once the singles are released, I'm pretty sure that radio stations have broadcasting right. What artist wouldn't want them to??? That is the main way that people that buy CDs hear the music in the first place!

That is super messed up. I don't see what the infringement could possibly be! They weren't selling the music, or claiming it as their own. They weren't using it as advertising or anything. I don't get it! That's nuts.

Truly ridiculous! I don't know enough about the courts in the UK or how heavy their dockets are, but this sounds like one of the cases that ties things up and causes valid ones to be pushed to the back of the line.

The only point that stands out as realistic is the KwikFit company policy banning the use of personal radios in the workplace by it's employees. It's stated this has been in place for 10 years. That, to me, seems to be an internal infringement on their own policy and should be dealt with inside KwikFit by the owner, Tom Farmer.

Wait - isn't it the radio station that is giving the public performance? If I remember correctly, they do have to log the songs they play, and have some sort of royalty deal in order to broadcast them. This issue came up some years ago with radio shows using pop songs as their theme songs - the CBC banned the practice because they had to pay for the use of the songs; all of their shows had to change to theme songs produced in house, so the copyright belonged to them.

Shops have been playing the radio for ever - surely there is precedent about this issue? Whether it is personal radios, or an old Philco sitting on the shelf over the cash register, the same principles would apply.

Yes, Absolutely Asinine with knobs on. This is not how the Performing Rights Society protects its members' interests: it's how it makes itself look half-witted.

Perhaps Lord Emslie deliberately didn't throw it out in case there was instant outrage - from anyone: he wants to hear evidence and make the case last so that he can say he's conducted the case properly - now, PRS, please go away.

I don't like loud music in shops, and I hate deafening music pouring out of passing cars, but I'd rather put up with it than see the Performing Rights Society winning.

So, are the PRS now going to enter every single shop-front in the UK and demand the owners pay royalties?

Perhaps they should consider how they are going to level the playing field before they behave like such pratts.