Did you ever wonder what it would really be like if workers suddenly controlled the means of production? Well, we haven’t gotten to anywhere near that point yet, but a story out of Britain might give a fair indication of what might happen, as this would be a case of a workers organization influencing law.
The Performing Rights Society for Music has made it next to impossible to enjoy music in Britain without paying some kind of fee. If you own a pub with a jukebox, you pay a fee. If you own any kind of business, you pay a fee if you play music. If you walk down the sidewalk and sing, whistle, or hum a tune by any of their member artists, then yes, technically speaking, you might well owe a fee, depending on who hears you and reports the “offense”.
It should come as no surprise, then, that one file-sharing service, Pandora, recently banned listeners from the UK. Now, Google has followed suit and banned UK listeners from YouTube music videos. PRS is incensed, of course, and so released this statement-
PRS for Music is outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the UK.
Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing.
This action has been taken without any consultation with PRS for Music and in the middle of negotiations between the two parties. PRS for Music has not requested Google to do this and urges them to reconsider their decision as a matter of urgency.
Steve Porter CEO PRS for Music said "We were shocked and disappointed to receive a call late this afternoon informing us of Google's drastic action which we believe only punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent."
Google had revenues of $5.7bn in the last quarter of 2008.
The lesson from this should be, when you act like a dick, sooner or later, somewhere down the line, somebody is going to act like a dick right back at you. Google’s 5.7 billion dollar revenues are irrelevant. They didn’t mind paying the fee until the PRS jacked it up. Now they’ve priced themselves out of two markets.
And if you think this is unfair, consider the following-
PRS recently filed a complaint against a police station in Lancashire England for playing its stereo “too loud”. The point being that by doing so it crossed the line from private listening enjoyment into the realm of “public performance”, and thus by right of law, owed fees.
Any British performer that supports this nonsense doesn’t deserve to have their music heard by the general public. The problem is, I seriously doubt they have a choice, and I am also of a mind that the total amount of money this shabby organization takes in winds up for the most part with the company, with the performers seeing relatively little of it. Regardless of how much the performers themselves make, even this is actually irrelevant. This is an obvious shakedown. Jesse Jackson should intern for these people, as even he might actually learn something.
Never mind the reality that if I play music at my home, business, or just sing a tune out on the street, that would amount to a kind of promotional event, judging by these jackasses criterion. So in the event I ever go to Britain, or if things ever get that way here, I wonder what my chances might be of drawing advertising fees from these pricks. Don’t laugh, it makes as much sense as their current public performance fees policies. Actually, it makes a good deal more sense, since nobody is likely to pay me one red dime for singing a song while walking down the sidewalk, or for blasting my car speakers as I drive down the road. There is a fairly good chance, however, that I might inadvertently influence somebody to buy a damn recording.
