TorrentFreak Email Update

Rights Group Fined For Not Paying Artist For Anti-Piracy Ad

Posted: 17 Jul 2012 04:00 AM PDT

In 2006, Dutch musician Melchior Rietveldt was asked to compose a piece of music to be used in an anti-piracy advert. It was to be used exclusively at a local film festival.

However, when Rietveldt bought a Harry Potter DVD in 2007, he discovered his music being used in the anti-piracy ad without his permission. In fact, it had been used on dozens of DVDs both in the Netherlands and overseas.

In order to get the money he was owed, Rietveldt went to local music royalty collecting agency Buma/Stemra who had been representing him since 1988 but had failed to pay him any money for the anti-piracy piece previously registered with them.

Eventually Stemra sent Rietveldt an advance of 15,000 euros along with a promise to forward a list of all the other DVDs that the composer’s music had been used on. That list never arrived, but according to the Amsterdam Court this week it amounted to at least 71 commercial DVDs.

In January 2009, Rietveldt wrote to Stemra informing them that the amount paid thus far wouldn’t cover the amount owed. Despite much wrangling, by 2011 Stemra still hadn’t provided Rietveldt with the necessary data but did pay another 10,000 euros ‘advance’.

“This dispute lingered on for some years, but in 2012 Stemra arranged a settlement with BREIN legal parent NVPI for the unpaid royalties,” Arnoud Engelfriet, a lawyer specializing in Internet law at the ICTRecht law firm, told TorrentFreak.

“Under the settlement Stemra would receive 60,000 euros. Rietveldt sued because he had calculated he was due at least 164,974 euros.”

In June, Stemra paid Rietveld another 31,000 euros but this week the Amsterdam District Court ruled that Stemra had indeed been negligent in their handling of the case. They were fined 20,000 euros, ordered to pay Rietveldt’s legal costs, and told to continue efforts to pay all money due to the composer while keeping him fully informed of developments.

The case caused a scandal in the Netherlands last year following discussions Rietveldt had with Buma/Stemra board member Jochem Gerrits about getting the money he was owed.

Rietveldt’s advisor talking business with the Buma board member

buma

In order to help, Gerrits suggested that the composer should sign his track over to High Fashion Music, a label owned by Gerrits himself and one that would take 33% of Rietveldt’s royalties for its trouble.

“This prompted TV news organization PowNews (who had recorded the conversation) to assert corruption, but Gerrits later claimed he was speaking as director of his record company, and it is standard that a record company gets 1/3rd of the mechanical royalties,” Arnoud Engelfriet explains.

Although Gerrits resigned his position, he later initiated a defamation lawsuit against PowNews. But the embarrassing ripples caused by the case didn’t end there.

“While traditionally these societies operate as private institutions (self regulation), this affair has prompted the under secretary of state Fred Teeven to announce regulations to forbid the conflict of interest that Gerrits was in. More regulations may also appear,” Engelfriet concludes.

Source: Rights Group Fined For Not Paying Artist For Anti-Piracy Ad

Is The Peter Sunde Petition Offensive, Inflammatory or Objectionable?

Posted: 16 Jul 2012 11:34 AM PDT

For users of phpBB-powered forums during the last decade, member polls were an everyday occurrence. Any user could start a poll, and as a result many useful discussions were enjoyed.

Some users would also start trivial and frivolous polls, such as a multiple choice polls with only one outcome. Forum admins combated this by ordering “NO STUPID POLLS” which were responded to by people creating polls asking “Should we have a poll?” Thankfully it’s been a good few years since I last saw one of those – until this weekend.

Two weeks ago, former Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde submitted an emotional plea for a pardon to the Swedish authorities. If successful he would avoid a pending eight month jail sentence.

In support of Sunde a petition was started on Avaaz, a site with the stated aim of bringing “people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.” The ultimate aim is to deliver the petition to Beatrice Ask, Sweden's Minister of Justice, so Avaaz seems like a great fit.

The petition has been a roaring success. Sunde initially said that 10,000 signatures might make a difference but at the time of writing more than 91,000 people have signed. However, this weekend Avaaz sent out an eyebrow-raising email to its members which questioned whether the Sunde poll should be allowed on the site.

“We're a democratic community of more than 14 million people, and will only support petitions that our community agrees are not offensive, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable,” Alex from Avaaz wrote.

He then directed Avaaz users to pick one of three options for a private poll.

– I support Avaaz providing people the opportunity to sign this petition
– I think Avaaz should remove this petition
– I'm not sure

This intervention puts Avaaz on tricky territory. Just a cursory glance around their site reveals a quagmire of petitions on massively controversial issues which by their very nature polarize people according to who sets to benefit from either side of a dispute.

The petition for the legalization of same-sex marriages in Poland is bound to be offensive to some religious groups and if the report on another petition is to be believed, calling for the protection of Muslims in Myanmar is bound to be objectionable to Rakhine Buddhists.

So is a petition supporting someone’s perfectly legal request for clemency offensive, inflammatory or objectionable? Well it all depends who you ask.

The copyright lobby no doubt thinks that the actions of The Pirate Bay, and by extension Peter Sunde, are indeed objectionable. On the other hand the tens of thousands of people who signed the petition in support of the site’s former spokesman probably have strong feelings towards overreaching copyright law.

The point here is not whether Sunde or his detractors are correct, but why out of all the highly controversial petitions on Avaaz was his singled out as potentially offensive?

We don’t know the answer to that since Avaaz did not respond to our request for comment, but have we really reached a point where we have to poll people to discover whether or not supporting someone who has an anti-copyright stance is OK? If so that would be both offensive and objectionable.

Let people speak freely on both sides – what’s the worst that can come of it?

Eight months in prison apparently. No wonder so many people signed.

Source: Is The Peter Sunde Petition Offensive, Inflammatory or Objectionable?

The Pirate's Press

Tuesday, 17 July 2012