Buma/Stemra, a Dutch collective rights society that represents the interests of copyright holders (some 19,000 composers, authors and publishers), is the topic of the day in the Dutch blogosphere and beyond. The association has managed to wield itself into the eye of the storm because of the introduction of new, exorbitantly high digital music licensing fees, and its stated willingness to fine bloggers up to €21,6 (roughly $31.8) per music video they dare embed on their websites or blogs.
Buma/Stemra has commissioned a local startup called Teezir to build an Audio Detection Solution which the company claims is capable of automatically detecting copyrighted audio on Dutch websites. Should the association use the crawler to find out you embedded a YouTube video featuring material from a composer or performer who is registered with Buma/Stemra, then they aim to charge you their new annual license fees for embedded content (calculate them here).
Update (9 October 2009): this article in Dutch reveals Buma/Stemra has put its foot in its mouth and decided to withdraw from trying to impose fines on individuals who embed music videos, stating they’ll only target ‘commercial’ users after all. Caveat: The association says every website that has ads on it is a commercial venture, which means if your Blogger blog has Google ads on it, you could still be on their radar.
These fees, which will become effective 1 January 2010, were laid out in this brochure (PDF in Dutch) and are, according to the director of Buma/Stemra, calculated based on the fees they currently charge for offline music playback such as copyrighted background music in bakeries and the likes. The fees amount up to €130 ($191) for up to six embedded files, €260 ($383) for up to twelve, and if you embed over thirty files you will be liable for €650 ($957) per thirty or part thereof (i.e. 31 embedded files on your site will set you back €1300 or roughly $1914).
Because God forbid you might want to provide their right holders with a bigger audience for their music and potential new fans who would buy their albums and pay to attend their live performances. The horror!
The association did say that they do not intend to ‘chase’ individual bloggers, but also added that they will not be excluding them from eventual fines either. In an extraordinary act of compassion, they intend to give naughty embedders the chance to take the material down before going after their wallets. Buma/Stemra is currently also trying to start conversations with Google (YouTube, Blogger) and local blogging platform providers like Hyves to try and get financial compensation for them for the distribution of copyrighted material by their users, but so far hasn’t reached any agreements with either party.
Fortunately, several political parties in The Netherlands have already stated that they are concerned about Buma/Stemra’s intentions, posing questions about the juridical grounds for the new licensing fees and publicly wondering if it’s actually a smart idea to refrain music fans from spreading the work of their favorite artists.
Let’s hope common sense prevails.
So we can all keep enjoying this video clip of Dutch rock band Golden Earring, with ‘When the lady smiles’.
Robin,
Correct the 2nd paragraph:
then they aim to withhold their right to charge you their new annual license fees for embedded content.
should read:
then they aim to charge you their new annual license fees for embedded content.
Yes, correct, updated article and also added a link to this handy calculator: http://fairplaycalculator.nl/
Thanks Robin, it looks better now and reads better..
even music magazines abroad are giving them the finger:
http://www.side...d=43646_0_2_0_C
funny
thnx for cool vid
This is not so unusual. I have an ASCAP guy with similar claims for 2 months already.
Bye bye open internet!
“its stated willingness to fine bloggers up to €21,6″ … the word ‘fine’ would suggest that this ’society’ has some sort of legal authority. What happens if you simply don’t pay the fine?
€21,6 is hardly enough money to chase. This all seems rather stupid …why not just fine them €21,6 for being so stupid … now you’re even?
What if I post a message to facebook with a youtube video in it? Seems pretty embedded to me. I guess they’ll just sent the bill to Mark Z.
He can afford it!
That’s one out of… 17 million?
This whole case is just stupid.
for now, they will fine you. The person placing it on her or his Facebook.
there is again stupid plan from benelux+french corner…. I remember when they planed to ask fare for email; nonsense… they play only for some eu money support, this is not real idea, just scam
Bill Gates was thinking of small fees to send email just to cut down on numbers of spam emails. It could work.
(facepalm) because nobody ever forges sender addresses
Actually, I believe that idea originated at Stanford University.
isn’t the whole idea of music videos that they’re a promotional/branding tool for the artist? i would have thought labels would want them to be viewed as far and wide as possible, like viral ads.
What I wonder is how they decide if a site is dutch? Does that depend on a .nl domain name, (even techcrunch has a .nl), dutch language, or dutch hosting? What if I make a dutch blog on (us-hosted) blogger, with youtube vid’s on it? How do they even KNOW who to bill, when they decide a blog is dutch?
I was wondering about that too.. If they just say .nl sites, then everyone will just go to other sites..
>_< If this is really going to happen, which I hope not, it would be so stupid..
Or they just start suing in their home jurisdiction… I guess Arrington will soon have to add The Netherlands to his travel blacklist.
Well what can you say, they need to be able to pay for their 2k dollar chairs to sit in, so they can give a press conference to say you may not record it, so you cant see some grey haired douche bag say something so profoundly stupid you even wonder why such organisations are allowed to operate.
I thought the internet was suppose to be a resource? It’s turning in to a playground for peoples money. Makes me sick.
How typically Dutch. There is no room for creativity in NL to begin with. Everyone is busy trying to be “normal”. I guess that these Dutch “artists” are trying to make sure that they keep and secure their honored places of “great pretenders of creativity and entertainment” and any cash flow generated from it. Before others would want to follow suit, I suggest that they relocate to NL for a while and get a sense of what kind of soulless culture this move is coming from.
(We wrote this story in English too, great to see it here as well!)
Buma Stemra employees embed tons of stuff on their Hyves (Dutch ‘Facebook’) pages and they’ll be left alone, of course. Hypocrits.
http://www.geen...u_even_mee.html
This proves again that the people running these organizations are complete morons. Bad for our Dutch image in being a liberal country.
Is this in the interest of the Artists? This organization has been in the news a few times before and they prove to be “out of date”.
When do they get that economic models need to change instead of trying to force old models.
You raise an interesting point re the artists.
We are forever blaming the rights associations, labels and industry bodies for this kind of stupidity, but it’s about time someone started pointing the finger at the artists themselves.
They are the ones who have the real power to say “enough is enough”. Yet they never do.
It’s supposedly to be 130 euro for the first 6 video’s, so even if they see 1 or 2 you pay at least that. But legally it’s complete bull because the video is only on one server (at least not yours) so your actually just linking to it.
If they decide to make that that’s something you have to pay for, then the dutch web is going to stay behind and that’s why we’re upset.
Besides, Buma/Stemra (BS) was already a questionable institute. They are not from the state but do have permission to in those fees… Luckily some parties are asking questions about this new ‘rule’.
I sure hope they soon change with us instead of against us. My parents had a restaurant were they needed to pay BS just for having the radio on.. I personally think that all ready is somewhat strange since the radio stations pay lots and lots to broadcast to BS.
The world is changing rapidly with this thing called the internet and hick ups like this are bound to happen, let’s just make sure it all turns out for the better.
Somehow, I lived a full life without iTunes, without Youtube, without a whole buncha stuff now considered “necessary.”
I suspect, strongly, that if someone or some organization banned me from using or watching Youtube videos, I’d find some other use of my time. Just a hunch. But something they ought to be really worried about.
This doesn’t seem legally sound to me. Embedding is not the same as re-transmission (cable companies pay for TV re-transmission and so do TV companies for initial broadcast of TV programs).
Nonetheless, I think it’s reasonable that composers get paid when their music is used, especially because they don’t (or hardly) benefit from other income streams. A composer is not a musician/star, but just a guy (or gal) who write a tune that is performed by someone else.
Also, composers get paid by societies, like BS (no pun intended), so this money doesn’t disappear in the pockets of big corporations.
Still, this doesn’t seem like a sound approach to me. A collective license fee paid for by hosting or maybe service providers could be an option and this little gadget could be used as a monitoring tool to pay money to the composers whose music was actually used. This is just a suggestion; I’m sure there are better options.
The problem with BS (pun very much intended) is that the money doesn’t directly go to the composers etc. I read an article on Geenstijl.nl a few months back where they publicly admitted that they had invested tons of it and that because of the recession it wasn’t worth that much anymore..
BS should go or be under some sort of supervision so that there can be acted before these stupid press releases.
Seriously I’ve had it with all this idiotic behaviour making the Dutch look like a bunch of idiots and beggars. (Remember what BREIN did?)
George has nailed it. It IS a stupid idea, but it IS legitimate. IP laws allow people who create some IP ownership over it & it’s usage & therefore some rights to charge people who use it. Posting an embedded video amounts to usage.
I get frustrated with 99% of the arguments people have about IP online – essentially because it’s EASY to use something therefore i SHOULD be allowed to use it however i like. No! God knows the music industry needs to find a way around the practical reality of the internet, but they DO have a right (at this moment in time) to be compensated for usage. Haveing said that, they had better come up with a way of waiving that right most of the time cos they are going to really struggle to actually get paid.
They will probably chase .nl domains, but what really scares me in the idea is the flatness of the rate. No difference between commercial and non-commercial sites, no difference for views, no way to get approval of artists/labels/other owners to place them for free, etc.
And the way Buma/Stemra mentioned it during their press-conference these rates also go for embedding youtube vid’s with background music by an artist that is registered with Buma. So not only music-blogs are tempered by them, but just about everyone who publishes anything video-likke on a .nl domain.
I have to pay 260 euro ($382) for 12 embedded video’s..
Nice
This problem will solve itself; artists will (or should) turn their back on companies like Buma/Stemra when they keep introducing music-killing initiatives like this.
Someone set up a honey trap, get the IP they’re scanning from and have everyone block it. Just keep doing that, eventually they’ll run out of money for a gazillion IP addresses.
Eventually the artists will put an end to this sort of thing. IF, they ever figure it out. What they need to figure out is that, for the music industry, it damn sure has nothing to do with the music. Its about greed!
Artists aren’t represented by Buma Stemra. BS represents composers and pays them. Did you know that 100 millions plays on Youtube equates to 11 pounds? http://musicall...vid-on-youtube/
This seems unfair to composers, who mostly depend on this income and don’t have other sources of income (like artists).
I still don’t think this new technology is right, but I feel like I need to inject a note of reality here.
The fun thing is, Techcrunch being a non-Dutch website can post as many embeds as they want. It’s just killing the Dutch online industry.
Isn’t is possible to block web crawlers from your blog?
Sure, there are already some tools available: http://bler.web....com/bs_blocker
However, this requires *some* technical knowledge, which the majority of bloggers on Hyves and other platforms lacks.
And this one for Wordpress ; http://coenjaco...wlers-wordpress
There is a petition currently online at http://www.peti...g/petition.html
Over 7.000 signatures already, so if you want to support the movement against this craziness by Buma/Stemra, then sign there to keep blogging alive!
Why is it with all these online petitions – folks only ever end up gettign a few thousand “pledges” (not signatures) ?
Isn’t the internet global?
Aren’t there millions upon millions of folks online at any given time?
TechCrunch – YouTube – illegal downloading are rather prominant on the web – why don’t these things ever generate more than a few thousand?
Sorry – but 7000 signatures ain’t a big deal when 7 million people in the UK are potentially going to be criminally charged within a year.
http://torrentf...iminals-090816/
Well, every little bit helps, and in this case it did: yesterday, the biggest Dutch news agency, NOS, interviewed the guy who put the petition online, and this brought the plight of the bloggers on national tv last night. So that’s good, right?
“I’ve been driving all night my hands wet on the wheel. And there’s a voice in my head that drives my heel”. – Radar Love, Golden Earrings.
how can they fine you? the video is not on your server or even streamed from your server. It is on/streamed from youtube? Do they really have a legal ground to go after the site embeding?
I believe it comes down to “usage” of the IP, as one commenter pointed out above. Even though the video isn’t hosted or streamed from your site, it is still being watched through it–therefore the “usage” bit.
a lot of these legacy organizations will never accept the new reality of how information is shared on the web and believe they can block progress through legal means, but i doubt it will work. anyone know of examples where progress was succesfully blocked in the long term through legal means ?
so if I block their webcrawler with a robots.txt file on my website – how will their crawler circumvent this?
Web crawlers don’t have to obey a robots.txt file.
Also, time to embed within a yucky iframe I guess.
Harry “ugh, internet and music/movies” Wang
Let this officially serve as notice that I’m now charging €21,6 (roughly $31.8) per embedded video to any content owner that attempts to crawl my blog with an automated system.
Some content owners will be excused, because I benefit from them (Google) but most will have to pay up (Dutch silly people) I’ll decide who has to pay up on a per incident basis.
Thanks!
No-one can force anyone to do anything they do not wish. All they have to do is remove from blog.
I’m just here for the video.
That guy sexually assaulted a nun.
LOL.