The Butt Ugly Weblog

Listen to radio, crank up the bill for the owner

Here's a fascinating story I heard today. You know those hearing protectors with built-in FM radios? Nice things if you have to work in a noisy environment a lot, and many companies have been providing them their workers to make them happier.

Well, no more. The Finnish copyright collection society, Teosto, has apparently slapped some companies (such as ABB) with bills of up to "several thousands of" € for providing workers with these useful hearing protectors. So obviously that puts an end to the practice, and is making for some fairly unhappy workers who have to shell out their own money if they want to listen to radio while working from now on.

Now, being a lazy blogger, I can't be arsed to actually check the facts to this story, but there should be enough data here for someone to actually do the journalism bit and make a few phone calls. If anyone cares, that is. Let me know how it turns out so I can admit my idiocy here publically. But if true, I have to admit that this story goes right in the same basket as "Teosto collecting money from kindergartens from singing songs" and "Teosto collecting copyright levy on external hard drives" - not exactly a PR win.

Just remember: It might be considered public performance if you loan your radio to someone else, and you might owe arbitrary sums of money to Teosto. So it's best if you don't listen to radio anymore, unless it is owned by an enemy of yours, as you might be incurring big costs to the owner… ;-)