[kj] OT: If Anyone Can Hear Your Radio, You're a Pirate!

[Alexander Smith]

Good lord...

Record Industry: If Anyone Can Hear Your Radio, You Are A Pirate And  
A Thief
via Gadget Lab by Rob Beschizza on 10/9/07


Like an infintely-growing fractal tree of bullshit, the record  
industry's inexplicable belief system grows ever crazier. The latest  
legal promulgation from one of its tendrils? According to Britain's  
Performing Rights Society, which collects royalties for the music  
industry, playing radios loud enough for other people to hear amounts  
to an unlicensed public performance. The punishment? Hundreds of  
thousands of dollars, please.

There are pros to this, mind you. First. when some kid's subwoofer- 
laden ricer lumbers down the street at 4 a.m., he is now a filthy  
pirate in addition to being a noise polluter. Second, workers at car- 
repair chain Kwik-Fit, the first to be targeted by this new legal  
campaign, will get back to fixing your 1986 Corolla instead of  
dancing the Macarena.

And then there is the con: any speaker bigger than an earbud is now  
illegal, unless it is in a soundproofed room.

So, how do you think trying to own culture will work out for them?

The next Copycrime: "making hearable" rings up £200,000 copyright  
suit [Ars]


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