Small businesses were up in arms in 2013 when the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) launched legal action against restaurants and other businesses who’d failed to pay proper licensing fees for the background music played in their establishments.
As far as the PPCA were concerned, restaurants were public spaces and thus the artists played in a restaurant was owed a royalty. One of the arguments at the centre of the dispute, of course, was what constitutes a public space and a private one, and the rights therein.
Well, the issue is about to bet a whole lot more complicated. As TorrentFreak reports, Swedish royalty collection outfit STIM (Svenska Tonsättares Internationella Musikbyrå) reckons car stereos perform music to the public and as a result, rental companies are breaching copyright if they don’t have a suitable license.
STIM are currently in the midst of a dispute with car rental outlet Fleetmanager, whose cars contain a stereo radio and a CD player. STIM are arguing that the inside of Fleetmanager’s cars contain members of the public and therefore amount to public places.
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Assuming STIM’s argument is valid, Fleetmanager thus need to obtain a public performance license to compensate artists played in their cars. However, Fleetmanager disagree, noting that any music played inside a car is heard by a very limited number of people.
The implications of the dispute are numerous. If a rented car is indeed a public space, since they contain members of the public and aren’t privately owned, does a hotel need to pay a license fee? What about a landlord who is renting a house to someone?
Well, in the case of hotels, yes, they do. STIM say that previous cases involving hoteliers ended with licenses being obtained, enabling hotel guests to listen to music while on the premises. If that wasn’t enough, other car rental companies in Sweden have already agreed to pay a per-stereo levy.
This isn’t the first copyright dispute to hit the car industry in recent memory. Back in July 2014, the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies launched a class action lawsuit against Ford and General Motors over the CD-ripping capability of their cars, later pursuing Chrysler and technology partner Mitsubishi.
