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German publishers retain veto over ringtones
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 19 March 2010
So, we got an interesting ruling in Germany this week regarding the licensing of mastertones and ringtones, the result of a legal squabble between EMI Music Publishing and T-Mobile.
EMI took legal action against T-Mobile because, although the phone firm had a licence from collecting society GEMA to cover the publishing rights (lyrics and notes) in the music used for ringtones and the like, they hadn’t got permission from the publisher itself to use their songs. The phone firm argued that their use of songs owned by EMI was covered by blanket licences, so providing they were paying GEMA they didn’t need permission from the publisher directly.
But EMI argued that, under German copyright law, because the ringtone is a 45 second segment of a 3-4 minute track, and because of the way the song is transmitted, that constitutes enough of an alteration of the original song that the publisher retains a right of veto over whether or not a work can be used. To this end, GEMA runs a ‘two-step licensing system’ for ringtones, providing the publisher with their veto, but T-Mo have never had much time for that system, so ignored the veto step. Hence EMI’s litigation.
This week the German courts sided with EMI, confirming the veto right, and therefore declaring the ‘two-step’ system legal.
EMI’s legal rep Jens Schippmann told reporters: “The Federal High Court finally secured legal certainty and clearly denied the [claim] of the provider that the two-step licensing model is not admissible. For ringtones and mastertones the original musical work is shortened to 45 seconds, whereas the original work is three to four minutes. Furthermore, the musical work is reduced to a signal and so the original intention of the musical work to entertain the listener does not exist any more. The mastertone and ringtone interrupt the mobile phone owner and so the musical work is used for something different than it was intended in the first place”.
T-Mo are yet to respond to the ruling.
