Sabeine Heindl, General Manager of MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations) recently wrote an article on what constitutes legal use of music in a retail store. You know how restaurants, shops, and retail stores play music in the background while you shop? Well, it turns out that the music industry wants the stores to pay to play.
MIPI is an Australian organization that provides "investigative and intellectual property rights enforcement related services to the Australian music industry." (http://www.mipi.com.au/)
Here's a list of the recommendations:
- You cannot play a CD even if you own it. By buying a CD, you only have rights to play it privately.
- You cannot play purchased or downloaded music such as from iTunes without the express consent of the copyright holders.
- You cannot play music that was obtained from other countries where the copyright is different. It is still infringement unless you have permission.
- In order to play music in a store, you must have a PPCA public performance license, a APRA public performance license, and the music must be from an original source.
If these items are not complied with, the store owner can be fined $60,500 for each infringing song and subject to up to 5 years of jail time.
Ouch. I wonder how many stores are legitimately following these guidelines. I doubt many know who to even contact if they wanted to be legal. Most probably don't think about the issue in the first place.
Sabeine Heindl goes on to say, "The illegal use of music is a very significant threat to those in the music industry. Not only are the copyright owners such as musicians, songwriters, and labels negatively affected by the illegal use of music, but so are numerous other people employed in the music industry who all depend on music sales for their livelihood. In a restaurant, cafe or retail store, common examples of illegally using music include playing burnt CDs, creating playlists from hard drives containing copied music or playing music illegally downloaded from the Internet through networks such as Limewire and e-Donkey." (http://www.insideretailing.com.au/articles-page.aspx?articleType=ArticleView&articleId=908)
Is illegal background music in stores really such a threat to the music industry? Doesn't the free play of music in a public store or restaurant mean more people can be exposed to a particular artist?
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Legal use of music in a retail store
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3 comments:
This is why some stores just play a radio station in the background.
If your store sells the cds is it not legal to play them? who do you contact to receive all needed information?
If you are playing CDs that you sell in your store, the chances are (but you need to check from who you buy your CDs from) that you have the right to play them for promotional reasons.
Many of these performance rights enforcement organisations ignore the fact that artists who own the rights to their music can legally allow shops to play their music independently of the performance rights organisations.
Artists can use independent royalty free or otherwise organisations such as Ambient Music Garden to sell their own music with these rights offered as part of the terms.
Essentially, with all uses of music, its about what are you purchasing the music for. What rights are you purchasing? what can you do with the music? If you buy a CD from a store you can listen to it at home and with friends, but you can't play it to thousands of people at a business event for example without paying the artist a fee, or royalty for use in that way.
It isn't well known because we are all so used to music being freely available to listen to via such mediums as radio for example.
Hope that helps :O)
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