TorrentFreak

Anti-piracy group BREIN is caught up in a huge copyright scandal in the Netherlands. A musician who composed a track for use at a local film festival later found it being used without permission in an anti-piracy campaign. He is now claiming at least a million euros for the unauthorized distribution of his work on DVDs. To make matters even worse, a board member of a royalty collection agency offered to help the composer to recoup the money, but only if he received 33% of the loot.

Belgian music royalty collecting agency Sabam has once again stepped up to enforce their strict copyright regime. Today the group announced that it will bill Internet providers for allowing subscribers to play and download copyrighted songs. Sabam claims it is entitled to this compensation based on existing copyright law, and is demanding 3.4 percent of the monthly fee paid by subscribers.

This year alone more than 50 small restaurants, pubs and bars have been sued by the U.S. royalty collectors agency BMI for playing (live) music without a license. Many more received friendly visits from BMI lawyers urging them to pay their copyright dues, or else. This backward situation does not only affect the owners of these establishments, artists are losing gigs as well because of these public performance license shakedowns.

German music royalty collecting agency GEMA has once again stepped up to enforce their strict copyright regime. But this time they picked the wrong target. The group mistakenly demanded money from the nonprofit organization Musikpiraten for publishing five Creative Commons licensed tracks. Musikpiraten is baffled by the false claim and is considering filing a complaint for copyfraud.

A Spanish performing rights organisation has already fallen foul of the courts for the way it has collected evidence in royalties disputes. Yet, despite being punished for breaking the law in the past, it is unrepentant and says it will continue to do business in that way.

SoundExchange is a company that collects royalties for thousands of artists. Many webcasters, satellite radio stations and other music services pay license fees to SoundExchange, enabling them to play the music of these artists. Sounds fair, but there is one problem: SoundExchange has trouble tracking down the artists, Kim Wilde, Wu-Tang-Clan, where are you?