Carry on listening: Dentists do not have to pay music royalties
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- Published: Saturday, 17 March 2012 12:31
- Written by News Editor
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| The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that dentists do not have to pay royalties on music played in their practices. The judges said that this was because they are not broadcasting to the public, in a case brought against a Turin dentist by an Italian agency that collects royalties. The Luxembourg judges stated that dentists do not broadcast music for profit and the audience is limited. |
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The court’s rulings are legally binding across the EU. Under international agreements those who broadcast copyright-protected works to the public are liable to pay royalties to the artists.
The case affecting dentists was raised by Turin’s Court of Appeal. An Italian collecting agency, Societa Consortile Fonografici (SCF), challenged a Turin dentist, Marco Del Corso.
The ECJ ruled that ‘the public' refers to ‘an indeterminate number of potential listeners and a fairly large number of persons. But, it said, patients do not go to surgeries to listen to music but ‘with the sole objective of receiving treatment', and the number of people in a typical dental surgery ‘is not large, indeed it is insignificant', the judges explained.
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