Judge bans European-wide online music rights

The UK's Performing Right Society has won a court case over its Dutch equivalent, Buma, preventing the issuing of a Europe-wide licence for online rights. On 19 July 2008, Buma announced that it had issued such a licence to US online music provider Beatport and claimed that it was for worldwide repertoire, including that …

[Tom Chiverton]

Way to go

Way to go there, screwing up something that would have been good for the customer. Nice one !

[Anonymous Coward]

European or Europe-wide?

From the no-one's-more-pedantic-than-me dept. "European" doesn't have a width. Europe does, though. You can't, therefore, have something "European-wide". It's "Europe-wide".

[Ed]

Good for the customer? What the hell?

Wait, selling the rights to something they don't own is good for the customer? Huh?

[Charlie Clark]

Pyrhhic victory

You just know judgement will be overturned at a European level. And rightly so.

[Ivan Headache]

@Charlie Clark

"You just know judgement will be overturned at a European level."

Ah, so there is more to this European wide thing after all.

If all the Dutchmen go to a brown cafe, can we expect a European High as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Ed

It's not about selling something they don't own. Regardless of which "collection society" sells the license, the copyright holder gets their royalty. It's about which "collection society" gets a cut of the sale. The European Union competition commissioner Neelie Kroes's point is that under the traditional system, the artist was forced to use the collection society of their home country, who might not offer as good a deal as the collection society in another European country offers its artists. He wants some competition in the process, and under new EU rules, artists can shop between collection societies to get the best deal for themselves.

[TeeCee]

Translation time.

"PRS said that multi-territorial licensing is better left to market developments."

Or, put another way:

We'd prefer it if people just went off and did this to satisfy market demand with no legal backing. That way we get to sue the shit out of them and get paid twice instead of just the once.

Ar-har. Welcome to nuPiracy. We steal your booty *and* make you walk the plank.

[Anonymous Coward]

PRS collections dept

PRS are useless grasping fuckwits. They keep asking for money from my business that ceased trading years ago despite being told so by email. Once again, fuckwits.

[Midas]

Fit summation

@JIM: Stop SHOUTING and go back to bossing your ward: we're talking BUMA, not Burma -- the formely named country renamed by its military dictators to ghastly Myanmar -- and certainly not the BRUMA issued from your foggy head...

As for the newspiece, nothing to see here -- only the real pirates fighting for a piece of the loot...

The Black Jack, 'cause it's fitting.

[Anonymous Coward]

JIM isn't going to get to Mars

I thought uneducated JIM was a prime example of why the Brits lost out in the space race.

One day he may realise his dream and become a man from mars.