Comments on: Spanish copyright agency crashes wedding in search of copyright violations

By: Jay Kluger

Jay Kluger — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:21:23 +0000

This seems to be an unusual use of private investigators, however, PIs are used in many other unorthodox situations as well.

By: Pasaba por Aqui

Pasaba por Aqui — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:48:16 +0000

The problem is that the content remuneration model has change, because internet had connected the creator with the consumer, and all the people in the middle, suddenly, don’t win money with this, so they invent new ways of winning money instead of modifying their business model.

By: Pasaba por aqui

Pasaba por aqui — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:47:56 +0000

I don’t have problems with paying a reasonable price to the author, I’m a kind of author myself, but I don’t wanna/need this intermediaries winning more money than me, without doing nothing…

By: Pasaba por aqui

Pasaba por aqui — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:38:28 +0000

But I don’t wanna the song in CD format, I wanna it in mp3…

By: Kim Lindholm

Kim Lindholm — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:49:51 +0000

Sounds like a privacy infringment.
On the other hand, I think the original intention was to bust La Doma (a restaurant, a public place) who apparently hadn’t paid for the rights to play music.
Don’t know about Spain, but here in Finland if you own a public place (cab, cafe, restaurant, night-club), you pay a monthly fixed fee to the local RIAA (in Spain SGAE) and you are clear. The amount is quite small (about 10-20eur/month – atleast that was the case for a cafe I once owned). That will allow you to play any music and as much as you wish. Those cafes, retsaurants and cafes that are too stingy to pay this fee may blame themselves if they run into trouble. Now, crashing a party and violate privacy is a totally different story.
On the other hand, at home and at private venues you don’t have to pay this fee.

By: Txemi

Txemi — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:58:03 +0000

SGAE (Spanish RIAA) was for long the #1 Google result for “ladrones” (robbers). A few facts will illustrate why:

- A few years ago SGAE fined a school of children with special needs, only because they used copyrighted songs during a children school party. Only after the press made noise on the news, they waived the fine.

- Spanish Prime Minister Mr. Zapatero was heavily supported by the “artists” in the electoral campaign. In return, the government approved a bill, so that SGAE collects a tax on every disc, hard-drive, ipod, cellphone and any device that can carry music. e.g. For a hard-drive you have to pay 12 EURO to SGAE, even if you use it only to store your pictures.

- SGAE is pushing the government for the 3-advices before cutting the Internet Access. That is the way they want to make “culture” available for all

- the Spanish Minister of Culture funded with 8 million Euro the works of an “artist” to build the dome of one of the halls in Geneva U.N. building. Half a million Euro of the artist’s wages was derived from a budget allocated for Development Aid.

“Artists” and the socialist Government in Spain are very good friends.

By: whiskey

whiskey — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:12:36 +0000

Yup… They sued La Doma (the restaurant), not the couple… Oh and the camera guy… 86,000 euros in fines too.

By: D

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:07:47 +0000

Did you go to your wedding?

By: Milo

Milo — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:59:31 +0000

Xeno seems to be the kind of person that thinks that musicians should work for free.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:05:46 +0000

Sounds like revenge to me. In their opinion, the entire music industry got the big shaft when Napster came along. They missed out on gazillions of dollars in royalties and sales during that time period. Now it’s time for payback. They’ve got to fuck you one way or another. This is the new “pay $17.00 for a CD for one song and the rest of them suck.” Only now they have a chance of getting way more than $17 of your money.

This was inevitable and probably unstoppable, though. If Napster hadn’t done it, someone else would have. The industry dug it’s own grave in many ways.

Oh well. We might still be paying $17.00 for a crummy CD and carrying around walkman CD players if things had not happened the way they did.

Lesson of the day: Interrogate everyone with a video camera at a private event. If they don’t belong, destroy the tape, and “escort” them out.

By: ElGuiri

ElGuiri — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:55:35 +0000

A wedding is non-profit for the bride and groom, maybe, but generally everyone else involved in the grand event is making a buck (or here, a Euro). La Doma makes money hosting wedding receptions, and they fatten their profit margins by selling stuff they don’t pay for. This isn’t the RIAA going after some grandmother whose idiot grandchild downloaded a few MP3s; this is a copyright agency going after a business that as an element of their business plan stiffs the artists who have created the music that’s an important part of the experience.

This was a misleading article from Crunchgear. They make it seem like the wedding couple is getting sued, which is not what happened at all. What happened is that a Spanish court wanting to serve up some homecooking is using the “privacy” argument to make sure Spanish businesses can rip off music largely created outside of Spain.

By: diem

diem — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:05:30 +0000

They write (and well) not only about gadgets, but issues surrounding technology. No whining Michael, or banish yourself to engadget.

By: CrunchGear » Archive » Spanish copyright agency crashes wedding in … | ultimateweddingblog

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:42:40 +0000

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By: Joe Cure

Joe Cure — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:56:49 +0000

Presumably someone did pay to use the song WHEN THEY BOUGHT THE ALBUM.

By: Nicki Brøchner Nielsen

Nicki Brøchner Nielsen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:34:01 +0000

Uri allow me to correct you. I live in Denmark and have spend a fair amount of times in cabs here ;) – and they do have radios and these radios do play music =)

By: Uri

Uri — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:06:50 +0000

There is nothing intellectual about property…

A barber in Israel was sued for having radio play in the background while working. In Denmark cab drivers don’t have a radio in the cab for that same reason. These greedy bastards make this world a worse place for everybody.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:35:32 +0000

You lucky S.O.B.

When I got married I told my wife I was never going to another wedding after my brother got married. …I’ve been to four since.

By: matt

matt — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:17:07 +0000

crashing a wedding to find copyright music is about stupid level 4…getting fined $85,876 and will still continue to do it, stupid level 10!

if it worked I could understand…

By: EH

EH — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:19:31 +0000

Publish the pictures of their agents on The Internet so people know who to look for. Sunlight squashes all bugs.

By: Manolito

Manolito — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:09:08 +0000

SGAE is Spains’ RIAA. They get money from every product you can store music in, from a blank CD to a memory card to a phone, and it doesn’t matter what you use the product for. If you buy CDs to back up your own photos (yes, your own photos) you are paying to them (unless you buy from outside Spain), and with the money they are getting (a lot of money!) they are paying their top artists and buying many other companies and buildings (but they said they are non for profit!).

They are friends with the goverment (’artists’ gave strong support to Zapatero’s campaign), and that’s why they, a private company, can directly collect this tax that is affecting anyone in the country.

I’m all to protect anyone’s work, but what they are doing right now is stoling us.