Schonhose

Most of my international readers might just wonder who or what Buma/Stemra is. Well, let me clarify this before continuing on this story.

There are people who make music although you’ll never hear them make a sound: they are called music authors. Their efforts precede the successes of the artists who perform their works. The music that we enjoy is their intellectual property. Just like other authors, they have the right to remuneration when their works are played, sung or recorded. Buma/Stemra takes care of these matters.

Source

Yesterday information about the new 2010 rates for using music was posted on their site (PDF here, in Dutch only). One of the new things is that blog owners (either commercial of hobbyists like me) have to pay for using Youtube video’s containing music on their blogs.

That is right. Every blog owner (and I do suspect social networking sites like Hyves as well) has to pay an yearly amount of 130 euro to be allowed 6 youtube clips with music on their sites. First off, this raises some interesting questions.

1. What if I have posted a video in 2002, when it was perfectly legal, and this post is still readable in the archives. Do I still need to pay for this?
2. What if I don’t actually post a video but merely a link to youtube. Do I still need to pay?
3. Lets assume for a second this is only valid for videos posted after January, 1st 2010. Say I pay 130 euro for a year and upload 6 videos. What happens in 2011? Do I have to pay twice the amount so I can have 6 more in 2011 as well?
4. What about Hyves, who is responsible? The servers are in the Netherlands, making them subjected to Dutch law. But the question is are the people who own the profile page responsible for the content or is that the responsibility of Hyves?

Anyway, everyone who has youtube vids on their page with hosting in the Netherlands will probably receive a letter first. This letter will gives us a choice: either take it down or pay up. Imagine the cost involved for sending all those letters…. I’m sure this is much higher than the revenues from people who actually decide to pay.