EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: F.UltraNetflix does no such thing, if you bought your account in Norway you can still access the service in Croatia, or Austria. There is no geo-lock on your account. Yes there is differences in available media depending on where you login to Netflix but that is not Netflix being asshats, that is different IP holders having different rights to media and thus different agreements with Netflix. Aka distribution company X might have the rights to show Y in Norway while company Z have those rights in Croatia and if only one of them have decided to make an agreement with Netflix then ofc Netflix is forbidden from showing that content in one of those areas or Netflix would be found guilty of copyright infringement. And there is draconian law allowing EU to force a single company to have the rights to the entirety of the EU, such things are handled by each local country.

Sorry for jumping in here, but I did say "region-locking streaming services is bad enough".

Here's something I think is interesting. TV Shows and Movies work completely differently in terms of copyright infringement to, say, books and music.

Music, in my opinion, has the most fair licensing. You can't prevent anyone from commercially exploiting your music due to compulsory licensing. This is far, far better for the customer. They don't have to search several streaming services finding the song they like because any service can license it and send the royalties over to the creator. However...you can still get region locks depending on where the copyright holder makes it available.

Am I not understanding something here? Are these songs actually licensed not under the compulsory model, but rather a voluntary licensing agreement between the distribution platform (e.g. YouTube) and the copyright holder? Why would they do that? Wouldn't the distribution platform end up with fewer rights at a greater cost?

With books, there is no compulsory licensing, but you will never get region locks. How would you even enforce that with physical books? With ebooks, you almost never get region locks.

And with film, there is no compulsory licensing, and region locks are everywhere.

I don't think I have to explain what my preferred model is. And I would prefer if copyright terms were far more reasonable (we can keep the 1989 amendment that implicitly grants copyright protection to works without a copyright notice, but 28 years is long enough for protection).

Full agreement that it is bad enough, I hope people don't take my explanations on how things work for endorsement of the system in any way (I am after all a registered member of the original Pirate Party).

Now I don't have any insight into how the law works in Australia, but in the EU and in USA there is no compulsory model for music. If you want to create films, shows, video games or public performances with copyrighted music you do need a specific license for it (aka if you get a license to use a piece of music in a video game you do not get a license to use that piece of music in any other form or for any other video game).

And you can most definitely prohibit services from playing your music, happens regularly in e.g the US in politics (e.g Reagan trying to use Born in the USA) and there are also some recent examples of artists excluding their material from Spotify.

Quoting: F.UltraFull agreement that it is bad enough, I hope people don't take my explanations on how things work for endorsement of the system in any way

And to be clear from my side, I wasn't taking your explanations as an endorsement. I did talk briefly about streaming services in my original comment, so I felt what you wrote served as somewhat of a response to it, hence why I jumped in the middle of your discussion

Quoting: F.Ultra(I am after all a registered member of the original Pirate Party).

That is definitely not a credential I have on my CV! I'm only a regular reader of TorrentFreak.

Quoting: F.UltraNow I don't have any insight into how the law works in Australia, but in the EU and in USA there is no compulsory model for music. If you want to create films, shows, video games or public performances with copyrighted music you do need a specific license for it (aka if you get a license to use a piece of music in a video game you do not get a license to use that piece of music in any other form or for any other video game).

And you can most definitely prohibit services from playing your music, happens regularly in e.g the US in politics (e.g Reagan trying to use Born in the USA) and there are also some recent examples of artists excluding their material from Spotify.

After looking into it, I realize I was fatally misunderstanding what compulsory licensing is.

I can't read legalese very well, but here's a relevant section of US Law as it applies to compulsory licensing with music: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/115#a_1

Quoting: U.S. GovernmentA person may obtain a compulsory license only if the primary purpose in making phonorecords of the musical work is to distribute them to the public for private use

The language in this is perplexing. You distribute them publicly for private use?

One thing is clear—compulsory licenses can only apply in the United States even despite the Berne Convention. They don't cross borders. And despite it being compulsory, you do need to contact the artist (or failing that, the copyright office) to decide the terms of the license.

As I read more, I saw that compulsory licensing is only supposed to apply to making covers of songs. Cover bands are definitely something unique among other copyrightable industries. So I'm thinking it would be legal to take some song (say Gymnopedies, but let's assume that song was still copyrighted, I don't know many songs okay), perform a cover of it, and use that song in your game after obtaining a compulsory license, but you wouldn't be able to obtain a compulsory license for the original Gymnopedies rendition.

This article seems to provide a clear take on the matter: https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-compulsory-license-in-music-2460357

And it makes it clear I was completely misinterpreting compulsory licensing. Man, I wish it actually worked as I imagined it...this is so much worse haha. This is how you can tell I've never used Spotify or listened to much music.

I do not understand this part at all though:

Quoting: liveaboutUse the song of the original artist for a live public performance, as a background track for their own recording, or for use with karaoke. That's because a compulsory license only applies to music that is distributed to the public to be listened to by the end user.

Why is compulsory licensing not allowed here..?

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: U.S. GovernmentA person may obtain a compulsory license only if the primary purpose in making phonorecords of the musical work is to distribute them to the public for private use

The language in this is perplexing. You distribute them publicly for private use?

I believe what it means is, the members of the public you distribute to cannot use what they get in a public performance, which the copyright holder would expect separate royalties from.

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: F.UltraFull agreement that it is bad enough, I hope people don't take my explanations on how things work for endorsement of the system in any way

And to be clear from my side, I wasn't taking your explanations as an endorsement. I did talk briefly about streaming services in my original comment, so I felt what you wrote served as somewhat of a response to it, hence why I jumped in the middle of your discussion

Quoting: F.Ultra(I am after all a registered member of the original Pirate Party).

That is definitely not a credential I have on my CV! I'm only a regular reader of TorrentFreak.

Quoting: F.UltraNow I don't have any insight into how the law works in Australia, but in the EU and in USA there is no compulsory model for music. If you want to create films, shows, video games or public performances with copyrighted music you do need a specific license for it (aka if you get a license to use a piece of music in a video game you do not get a license to use that piece of music in any other form or for any other video game).

And you can most definitely prohibit services from playing your music, happens regularly in e.g the US in politics (e.g Reagan trying to use Born in the USA) and there are also some recent examples of artists excluding their material from Spotify.

After looking into it, I realize I was fatally misunderstanding what compulsory licensing is.

I can't read legalese very well, but here's a relevant section of US Law as it applies to compulsory licensing with music: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/115#a_1

Quoting: U.S. GovernmentA person may obtain a compulsory license only if the primary purpose in making phonorecords of the musical work is to distribute them to the public for private use

The language in this is perplexing. You distribute them publicly for private use?

One thing is clear—compulsory licenses can only apply in the United States even despite the Berne Convention. They don't cross borders. And despite it being compulsory, you do need to contact the artist (or failing that, the copyright office) to decide the terms of the license.

As I read more, I saw that compulsory licensing is only supposed to apply to making covers of songs. Cover bands are definitely something unique among other copyrightable industries. So I'm thinking it would be legal to take some song (say Gymnopedies, but let's assume that song was still copyrighted, I don't know many songs okay), perform a cover of it, and use that song in your game after obtaining a compulsory license, but you wouldn't be able to obtain a compulsory license for the original Gymnopedies rendition.

This article seems to provide a clear take on the matter: https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-compulsory-license-in-music-2460357

And it makes it clear I was completely misinterpreting compulsory licensing. Man, I wish it actually worked as I imagined it...this is so much worse haha. This is how you can tell I've never used Spotify or listened to much music.

I do not understand this part at all though:

Quoting: liveaboutUse the song of the original artist for a live public performance, as a background track for their own recording, or for use with karaoke. That's because a compulsory license only applies to music that is distributed to the public to be listened to by the end user.

Why is compulsory licensing not allowed here..?

What you have found there is the tape tax. Differs from country to country, but the big one (as usual) is the USA who in 1992 implemented a tape tax after music producers complained that people pirate copied their material so they wanted a compensation on sold blank tape. So in a somewhat genius idea to not make this one way the US government agreed to add a tap tax to blank media but then also made it legal for people to make private copies of music (since they had payed for it with the "tax"). This is also when they started to label records with "explicit lyrics" in the US, a genius idea by the recording industry where they said that they accepted to add this label (driven by Tipper Gore:s [aka Al Gore:s wife] war on music) if they could get the tape tax accepted, fooling the politicians that didn't know or understand that the record industry wanted that label since it would sell more records.

This "tax" doesn't give you the right to make a public performance, only for you to listen to yourself (or friends in a close group and in private). Hence the text you quoted.

Here in Sweden the music producers managed to keep this tax going to modern media so they get a cut of external HDD:s, cell phones and SD cards. Which is complete nonsense since basically no one does pirate copying anymore after Spotify.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 30 September 2023 at 12:16 am UTC

Quoting: F.UltraWhat you have found there is the tape tax. Differs from country to country, but the big one (as usual) is the USA who in 1992 implemented a tape tax after music producers complained that people pirate copied their material so they wanted a compensation on sold blank tape. So in a somewhat genius idea to not make this one way the US government agreed to add a tap tax to blank media but then also made it legal for people to make private copies of music (since they had payed for it with the "tax"). This is also when they started to label records with "explicit lyrics" in the US, a genius idea by the recording industry where they said that they accepted to add this label (driven by Tipper Gore:s [aka Al Gore:s wife] war on music) if they could get the tape tax accepted, fooling the politicians that didn't know or understand that the record industry wanted that label since it would sell more records.

This "tax" doesn't give you the right to make a public performance, only for you to listen to yourself (or friends in a close group and in private). Hence the text you quoted.

Here in Sweden the music producers managed to keep this tax going to modern media so they get a cut of external HDD:s, cell phones and SD cards. Which is complete nonsense since basically no one does pirate copying anymore after Spotify.

I see...I think. As I mentioned before, I don't listen to much music

It's pretty crazy that they can collect royalties on private performances...

But aren't cover bands explicitly permitted under copyright law? I'm guessing this is a separate issue from compulsory licenses. I don't know anything about this other than that though.

Quoting: omer666You can't buy Postal Redux in Germany at all for example, even if you buy a legit key and try to activate it on Steam.

AFAIK this is not required by law, blocking happens either by Valve or the publisher. The requirements are very high (banned must not be sold, indexed requires a actual age verification, both must not be publicly advertised) but "ownership" is not illegal & activation should not be equivalent to sale.

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: F.UltraWhat you have found there is the tape tax. Differs from country to country, but the big one (as usual) is the USA who in 1992 implemented a tape tax after music producers complained that people pirate copied their material so they wanted a compensation on sold blank tape. So in a somewhat genius idea to not make this one way the US government agreed to add a tap tax to blank media but then also made it legal for people to make private copies of music (since they had payed for it with the "tax"). This is also when they started to label records with "explicit lyrics" in the US, a genius idea by the recording industry where they said that they accepted to add this label (driven by Tipper Gore:s [aka Al Gore:s wife] war on music) if they could get the tape tax accepted, fooling the politicians that didn't know or understand that the record industry wanted that label since it would sell more records.

This "tax" doesn't give you the right to make a public performance, only for you to listen to yourself (or friends in a close group and in private). Hence the text you quoted.

Here in Sweden the music producers managed to keep this tax going to modern media so they get a cut of external HDD:s, cell phones and SD cards. Which is complete nonsense since basically no one does pirate copying anymore after Spotify.

I see...I think. As I mentioned before, I don't listen to much music

It's pretty crazy that they can collect royalties on private performances...

But aren't cover bands explicitly permitted under copyright law? I'm guessing this is a separate issue from compulsory licenses. I don't know anything about this other than that though.

Cover bands are a special case indeed with a complex set of rules, I think this page have the best information: https://www.coverbandconfidential.com/blog/cover-song-royalties

In short royalties from covers have to be payed to the copyright holders but the musicians performing the cover can get payed for their work. This is not a special law in copyright though but instead something that record labels and musicians have created to allow this to happen (so not entirely sure that it will cover 100% of all music since it is most likely an opt in or opt out).

Quoting: F.UltraHere in Sweden the music producers managed to keep this tax going to modern media so they get a cut of external HDD:s, cell phones and SD cards.

Similar in Germany: https://www.zpue.de/produkte-tarife.html

It seems the eu parliament is finally taking the first steps toward erasing the hypocrisy of the no geolocking "unless your business is more equal than the others". We will see how it goes. Those are powerful lobbies to antagonize.