How to Avoid IMRO charges

jimmii

Even for music in the public domain you need a license for it to be played in public. I think if there was way round it Lidl would have be music and taking advantage of whatever the loophole was!

Sleeper12

I had a few hair salons from mid 80s to 2008. We used to have the radio on throughout the day. In the late 80's IMRO visited & demanded payment. On advice we refused stating that the radio station was already paying royalties on every song played. We got letters that we ignored. We told others in the business & they stopped paying. They threatened legal action right up to 2008 but never followed through. In all that time it had never been tested in court if they could charge twice for the one song. IMRO seemed to be collecting from the shops willing to pay but not bringing legal action to the ones not paying for fear that they'd loose the case & not be able to collect from any business playing a radio.

jimmii

There are cases of them taking people to court the shoe shop case is the interesting one for those looking not to pay. The whole thing seems a bit half arsed on their side.

clio_16v

I kept putting off paying it in a pub for ages. The letters stopped coming so I forgot about it. Got a letter saying I was brought to court and lost, first I heard of it. Sheriff took my license so had to pay what I owed plus fees to get it back

DubTony

I don't know what these guys charge but apparently they have something ...

https://moodmedia.ie/rights-included/

duploelabs

DubTony wrote: »

I don't know what these guys charge but apparently they have something ...

https://moodmedia.ie/rights-included/

Yeah, used to work for their sister company. It's rights-free tripe that they play

Wheety

If you could hear music from a neighbouring business but didn't play any yourself would IMRO try to charge you?

Sleeper12

Wheety wrote:

If you could hear music from a neighbouring business but didn't play any yourself would IMRO try to charge you?

I now drive a commercial van.

If I drive with the windows down & the radio up do I need to pay IMRO?

I get that the artist should be paid but if I listened to 2fm in the my commercial premises & 2fm has paid royalties why should I pay? You can't collect the same royalty twice

Wheety

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I now drive a commercial van.

If I drive with the windows down & the radio up do I need to pay IMRO?

I get that the artist should be paid but if I listened to 2fm in the my commercial premises & 2fm has paid royalties why should I pay? You can't collect the same royalty twice

They probably would try to charge you.

bren2002

What if I stream Spotify...?

Mumha

get an Eastern European, Asian or even Chinese orchestra to do a series of royalty fee music for a once off fee. You'd get a lot of bang for buck ?

jimmii

bren2002 wrote: »

What if I stream Spotify...?

Regular Spotify is for personal use only so technically you aren't allowed to use it like that. If you have Spotify business on the other hand then you might have a case as that would be paying a commercial license already.

md23040

jimmii wrote: »

Regular Spotify is for personal use only so technically you aren't allowed to use it like that. If you have Spotify business on the other hand then you might have a case as that would be paying a commercial license already.

You still have to pay for a Imro/Ppi dual licence regardless of whether you have a commercial Spotify licence or not. The Spotify licence does not cover a premises for public performance copyright.

A lot of people realise that something has to be paid but the rate cards of these two agencies are too high when combined and a typical average shop would pay €500 a year or so for an area circa 1500 square feet according to the rate cards. The shoe shop case highlighted that the music did not directly create sales and if someone was coming into the shop to buy shoes then the music was not a contributor to the sale and given the shop had so few customers at any one time the judge considered the royalty demand to be too excessive and threw the case out. Some shops struggle to make a living and €500 is too excessive. Many successful retailers like Lil, Aldi, Dunnes, Primark do not play music and Marks and Spencer recently got rid of it for the second time. It does not create sales directly but just an ambience and the charge should be recognised as such. Retailers would be happy to pay €50-100 per year all in but not the current fee. The size of the shop alone for rate card purposes is too blunt abd generic and store size is not proportional to sales turnover/margin/profitability etc, but it suits these royalty companies easily.

The likes of large companies like Youtube pay 6 cents (USA) per 100 air plays so if a shop had 100,000 customers through its door in a year then the charge should be $60 all in based on the YouTube rate card. Many shops, pubs and restaurants can pay in excess of €1000 per year per unit which is crazy and of businesses would kill for 100k throughput.

These music agencies are scared of likes of Spotify, Apple, Google and instead are going after the lower hanging fruit and bullying them.

The law is about fair payment and that shoe case highlighted this but in light of industry standards the charges to businesses are not fair but punishing. All IMHO of course and not worth the paper it's written on unless industry challenges the rates in court to seeks fairer payment based on comparisons.

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/01/16/streaming-music-services-pay-2018/

Buttercake

md23040 wrote: »

The shoe shop case highlighted that the music did not directly create sales and if someone was coming into the shop to buy shoes then the music was not a contributor to the sale

Impossible to say unless the customers purchasing were surveyed.

IMO a fashion store (shoes, clothes etc) without music playing wouldn't be a warm or welcoming environment. Especially shoes where you need to think, sit down, wait, try on, maybe try on another pair.. modern/pop music is playing in the background at shoe shops and it would be a subconscious contributor.

Quadsey

I've asked but haven't gotten a definitive answer. is an ambient noise generating website or noise maker considered "broadcasting music"? I'm going to assume no as there's no composer or artist involved.

CeilingFly

clio_16v wrote: »

I kept putting off paying it in a pub for ages. The letters stopped coming so I forgot about it. Got a letter saying I was brought to court and lost, first I heard of it. Sheriff took my license so had to pay what I owed plus fees to get it back

Music in a pub would be considered to be an integral part of the offering and the pub is gaining from said music and thus will always lose a legal case.

Buttercake wrote: »

Impossible to say unless the customers purchasing were surveyed.

IMO a fashion store (shoes, clothes etc) without music playing wouldn't be a warm or welcoming environment. Especially shoes where you need to think, sit down, wait, try on, maybe try on another pair.. modern/pop music is playing in the background at shoe shops and it would be a subconscious contributor.

This is more a grey area. Some fashion stores, edp those targeting a young market, will use music to attract customers and thus gain from such music.

A family shoe store / hardware store / dentists would not be seen as using music to attract / obtain financial benefit, and thus imro/ppi tend not to fight those cases due to the court ruling