An offer they couldn't refuse?

Another rights collection agency's extortion racket hit a bump in the road earlier this week when YouTube blocked German access to thousands music videos less than a month after blocking almost all "premium" content in the UK.

Neither the newly formed Featured Artists Coalition nor rabid 'psycho-leftie' Billy Bragg - a man who's political rhetoric makes Chairman Mao look like a Lib-Dem - wasted any time at all in jumping on the bandwagon and condemning Google for "use of its near-monopoly to dictate terms to PRS for Music".

Something which these 'collection agencies' have been doing to the rest of us since long before the Mountain View Funny-Farm ever existed.

While I like to see people defying bullies and extortionists like the PRS, this is more like rival organised crime families in twenties America fighting a turf war for control of the rackets - alcohol, gambling, prostitution, extortion, etc.

But what really disgusts me is the actions of the Featured Artists Coalition. These are the very same people who have spent years screaming about how they're being ripped off by record labels and collection agencies, demanding a bigger slice of the income from sales and licensing, demanding more control over their own work.

I've always agreed with them in the past. They are being ripped off. They should have a bigger slice of the income and more control over their own work.

But now they're screaming in support of the collection agencies. One of whom is notorious for attacking schools, charity events, local businesses and even it's own members, preventing them from performing their own work because the venue had not purchased a license from the PRS.

Perhaps someone made them an offer they couldn't refuse...

It's just a mobile phone officer

Last Friday I wrote about the PRS attempting to extort money from yet another Dover business on the obviously specious grounds that their radio could be heard on an extremely busy road below.

Well it seems that my title implying the use of an artificial aid was rather closer to the truth that I realised.

I am indebted to a group of local amateur radio enthusiasts for drawing my attention to a formerly classified radio detection technique code-named "Rafter". Striped of the technical details, of which there was a considerable quantity - Thanks Guys - Rafter enables anyone with the proper equipment to detect an operating radio receiver at a distance and is the basis of the T.V. detector vans which once prowled our cities in large numbers.

The modern digital equivalent is a hand-held, portable device not much larger than an old style mobile phone and just as easily concealed. It is capable of detecting an operating radio or television receiver at up to twenty metres and can identify precisely which station - radio or T.V. - is being received.

Now all I need is for someone to email me a copy of the receipt and/or delivery note showing how many of these things the PRS have bought and where they got them from.

If you stand on the table and use these binoculars

If anyone needs further proof that the Performing Rights Society are running what amounts to an extortion racket then the case of a Dover business threatened with prosecution for having a radio on in a private office should be sufficient.

The PRS rep claimed that he could hear the music clearly as he passed underneath the open window. Quite apart from the rather dubious claim of an open window in this weather, anyone who knows London Road can testify it is often difficult to hear what the person standing next to you is saying, never mind music from an allegedly open window fifteen feet above the pavement.

Most of us are now familiar with the PRS’ increasingly bizarre interpretations of what constitutes a ‘Public Performance’, there’s certainly been enough media coverage of it recently. From a group of school children singing Christmas carols at a private function, to Kwik-Fit staff playing a radio too loud and a police canteen to which members of the public are rarely, if ever permitted access.

So what's next - my neighbour's summer barbecues? His son's birthday party? I'm fairly certain I will be able to 'hear the music clearly' from my side of the fence on both occasions.

Even more worrying, how long before we have to pay a license fee to listen to music in the privacy of our own homes? Will we have to switch it off before answering the door or pay an increased license fee because the caller can 'hear the music clearly' through the open door?