Ironic... don't cha think?
The Dutch copyright-lobbying outfit Brein is in hot water with a Dutch musician for pirating one of his tunes.
Melchior Rietveldt was commissioned by the Dutch copyright-lobbying group Brein to compose an anthem for an "anti-piracy" video. Brein licensed his work for a single use but it went on to use it in shedloads of anti-piracy ads run at the start of DVDs which hector about the evils of piracy when you have actually bought the product in the first place.
Rietveldt who has been looking up the RIAA's figures about what piracy costs has decided that the infringement is worth a million euros. After all his tunes have been on tens of millions of Dutch DVDs. He alerted the local music royalty collecting agency Buma/Stemra and demanded compensation, but to his frustration he heard very little from the outfit. It seems that when collecting cash for music the outfit is not interested it taking one its own to the cleaners.
But the story gets a little worse. According to Boing Boing, a Buma/Stemra board member Jochem Gerrits contacted the Rietveldt with an interesting proposal. Gerrits offered to help out the composer in his efforts to get paid for his hard work, but the music boss wanted 33 per cent of all the money set to be recouped as a result of his efforts. In otherwords, we know we ripped you off and I want a cut of what you will make back.
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Nick Farell
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