The SGAE is the main collecting agency for performance royalties, which it then distributes to artists and copyright holders. Sometimes it goes that ‘extra mile’ to enforce these royalties, as it did in 2005.

The SGAE hired a private investigator to gatecrash a wedding reception in Seville and video it. The video was to be used as evidence that the venue was playing music without paying the fees SGAE felt it should. However, when the case came to trial, the judge threw out the video evidence as it was collected illegally, in violation of the privacy rights of the people at the event. Despite the loss of the taped evidence, the venue was fined €43,179 ($59,200 US) for using the music without paying royalties.

However, that story had a happy ending of sorts. The SGAE was later fined €60,101 ($82,400 US) for the violation of privacy. Excluding court costs, that’s a €16,992 loss for the SGAE, as well as the bad publicity it generated. Yet, in the world of copyright enforcement, if there is weight to be thrown around and fees to collect, it will be done. The head of the SGAE, Pedro Farre, is reported in The Times as saying “Using private detectives to investigate fraud is common. We will carry on doing it.”

The agency was also critical over the ruling that his agency violated the wedding’s intimacy, saying in 2006 that any questions over the legality of the video were “demagogic arguments”, and that the issue should be that the venue was using music illegally, not the legality of the evidence.

Now, in 2008 another similar case is reaching the courts. This time, instead of having a private detective recording the wedding, a tape the SGAE says they obtained from a legitimate attendee will be presented as evidence. Again, at issue is the privacy of the wedding – there is a constitutional right in Spain to one’s own image – which might still invalidate the video. Those at the wedding, after all, have no impact over the venue’s decision regarding licensing, and it’s their right to privacy that the venue’s lawyer, JoaquÍn Moeckel, says is being violated in the case against the Salón de Bodas.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

To make it even worse, the artists will lose all the money collected for them up to March 31, 2000, if they don’t sign up before the end of this year. What a crazy world are we living in. Some random company is allowed to collect the royalties of artist that are not even aware that this company is doing so. I mean, there could be better and more effective ways than this..

I agree that it is quite hard to contact “Ol’ Dirty Bastard” directly, since he’s not among us anymore, but it can’t be too hard to find out where his royalties should go to. Wilco, Kim Wilde, if you’re reading this… SoundExchange has some money for you.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.