Embedded Video Can Cost You a Lot (in Holland)

The Dutch organization Buma Stemra, monopolist in collecting copyright-remuneration for artists, announced a new price-plan today. In it’s brochure Buma Stemra proudly explains the model which starts at the 1st of January 2010. Although the brochure isn’t really clear, it comes to this: embedding 6 videos will cost a blogger 130 euro a year, 30 video’s will cost 650 euro. For company’s (with sales above 6500 euro a year) the price will be even higher.

It’s totally vague how Buma will use this price-plan in practice. Bloggers with embedded video’s will receive a warning-letter from Buma first. Buma told the VPRO small blogs are not their first priority. (So you don’t have to delete your videos immediately ;-)). But what Buma treats as small remains unclear. I’m also not totally sure about what will be seen as a Dutch weblog. Hosting your website in another country seem to be not enough. It is also questionable how Buma will charge big websites like Hyves, and Blogger.nl (and what about Blogspot?). If these organizations will be charged for all the embedded video’s uses post, they will probably delete or prohibit this functionality at all. The technical aspect seem to be a problem too. To search for embedded video’s in source-code is not hard, but how do you determine what music is used (and what about remixed content?).

The blogo- and Twittersphere responded furious[i][ii][iii][iv] and question if the Dutch-law allow remuneration for embedded content at all[v]. If you would like to protest against this proposal you can this here or here , or you can also help Bits of Freedom writing a letter. Political party CDA already made a statement against the plan of Buma Stemra.

I’m personally curious how other countries and organizations like Buma Stemra see (and charge) embedded video (and other content)? Maybe the foreign MoM students can tell something about it? Will it have impact on the blogosphere at all, or will we deny it at large? Will be continued for sure…

P.s. Sorry for al the Dutch links, I hope Google Translate is your friend.

[ii] http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/63859/buma-maakt-muziek-embedden-onbetaalbaar.html

[iii] http://3voor12.vpro.nl/artikelen/artikel/42560165

[iv] http://news.google.com/news?client=safari&rls=en&q=buma&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=nl&tab=wn

[v] http://tweakers.net/nieuws/62829/rekening-buma-voor-embedded-content-blijkt-juridisch-discutabel.html