Posted on 12/29/2010 9:26:00 AM PST by LibWhacker
German kindergartens told to pay before they sing BERLIN — A body representing German musicians found itself accused of Scrooge-like meanness on Tuesday after pressing kindergartens to pay up for singing songs that are protected by copyright.
The GEMA, the German musical copyright monitoring body, has written to 36,000 of the nursery schools telling them they have to fork out to photocopy song texts and to keep a proper record of which ones are sung.
Kindergartens and MPs were incensed, with the mass-circulation Bild daily calling the move "bureaucratic madness."
A spokeswoman for the Paritaetischer Wohlfahrtsverband Hamburg, an association representing 280 kindergartens, told the Tagesspiegel daily that the GEMA's demand was "petty, over the top and utterly inappropriate."
The GEMA wants all the various state, private and religious organisations that operate kindergartens to sign a contract giving the owners of the rights of songs a lump sum every year, in the same way that schools do.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Yes, I did like Merkel’s take on the disaster of immigration a few months ago. It was a real slam on the muzzie group. Good for her and may Germany kick out certain groups of people and become a Culture of Life for once in their history.
There are some fabulous German minds out there....but with their Schopenhauer/Hegel/Marx mindset they are in self-destruct mode—nihilism. They have to embrace God and life (and get rid of the false gods and atheists mindset). I pray that Germany does this and becomes great and good. They certainly have the genes for it and God’s grace, if accepted.
(I know—it is a fat chance, but anything is possible.)
You know your German language craziness.
Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerk-
bauunterbeamtengesellschaft
a.k.a., “Association of subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services”
Has already happened:
In 1998, Congress changed the laws so that restaurants and retail store below a certain size are now exempt -- with certain exceptions -- from paying royalties to songwriters and music publishers.
FWIW, I think this change was terribly wrong. But Congress never asked my opinion!
I have paid for downloading music. Copyright is not restricted to theater performance.
It’s been a while (1957) but I was in Kindergarten once and, I suppose, J. E. Van Wig Elementary School bought music. That schools can pirate music today is not to me a compelling argument against intellectual property rights.
I have paid for downloading music. Copyright is not restricted to theater performance.
It’s been a while (1957) but I was in Kindergarten once and, I suppose, J. E. Van Wig Elementary School bought music. That schools can pirate music today is not to me a compelling argument against intellectual property rights.
>> I wonder if the lawyers hang out at restaurants to make sure they get their cut <<
Probably not. But for many years, the main publishing rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI and SESAC) have had roving “spies” who go around the country to check on radio stations, restaurants, retail stores and other commercial establishments that offer music — in order to make sure all these businesses have paid the proper royalty fees.
I wonder what some of our more racist songs bring in?<.p>
The idea that copyrights need to last for a century is pure barbra streisand.
I’m gonna take the unpopular position on this. Blanket licenses for schools are not onerous — I’d estimate for a preschool it would be less than $100 a year. Elementary schools already pay license fees.
The schools get value from that music. Kids — and more importantly, the parents who pay the fees — like sing-alongs that include recognizable songs instead of being limited to public-domain ones. If one school has a better musical selection than another, that’s going to provide a competitive advantage.
I’m not familiar with GEMA, but in the US, ASCAP passes on 89% of that money to copyright holders, i.e. songwriters. If I wrote a song that was used by thousands of preschools, especially the for-profit ones, as part of the service they provide, I’d certainly think it reasonable that I make a few bucks from it, and that the folks who perform it kick in a few pennies.
Paying a few grand in royalties is easier and safer for a company than spending millions fighting it out in court.
Paul McCartney has bought a lot of song catalogs over the years, but he never owned "Happy Birthday." The small publisher that owned the rights was bought out by a Time Warner subsidiary in 1998.
The Marcarena guys did this with the Girl Scouts as well.
I don't doubt it. If the Girl Scouts were making the Macarena song part of their events, it's only fair that they should pay the people who created it. It's not a lot of money, and it's negligible when spread out over a large organization like the GSA.
In America there are many exemptions to copyright for educational uses. I don’t know if this is the case in Germany. Remember, our constitutional basis of copyright is for the promotion of the arts and sciences, not in a supposed natural right to the creation. If the government thinks kids singing for free promotes the arts more than an artist making money off the schools, then the artist doesn’t get any money. He has no natural right to it, only the limited rights granted by Congress.
All you greedy whiners about intellectual property rights of works produced decades ago can go pound salt;patents and copyrights were only intended to protect for a LIMITED time,besides,all this work is built on the accumulated knowledge of the nation and world.It is immoral to demand payments for generations.
In America -- I share your ignorance about German law -- those exemptions are limited to the core functions of education. There are exceptions to copyright for students to study music, or literature, or plays, but public performances are ancillary and subject to copyright. Entertaining students and parents is exempt.
Remember, our constitutional basis of copyright is for the promotion of the arts and sciences, not in a supposed natural right to the creation. If the government thinks kids singing for free promotes the arts more than an artist making money off the schools, then the artist doesn’t get any money.
If schools are exempt in toto, then there is no market for composers or arrangers who create music that children can sing. If there is no market, if composers can't make a living at it, then less music will be created.
There is, as there usually is, a balance to be struck here. There are also market forces at work, because carefully sticking to public-domain music is always an option. ASCAP and BMI are aware of this, and their license fees generally remain low enough that schools and businesses find them worth paying.
What does this mean?
My guess is something resembling:
Hamburg Association for Equality in Welfare
A strange name. It sounds like it would be an organization like the Salvation Army.
Wow, thanks for your comments. Didn’t know there was any justification for this stuff, but this thread has convinced me otherwise. Still... Has the music industry gone after small operators of day care centers, say? Or after 16-year-old babysitters? Seems like a slippery slope.
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