I’m posting this here, because I don’t think it’s political or controversial.
Just…sad
The last item in a “100 things we learned this year” article at the BBC:
- Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a “public performance”.
Criminal!
And now, to add controversy where I shouldn’t:
[u]78. One in 18 people has a third nipple.[/u] – which is obvious evidence in favor of Intelligent Design. 
Well, that’s a relief for me at least. The way I play there’s very little chance of a recognizable riff. 
Seriously though, I am optimistic that this lunacy will reach a point (if it hasn’t already) where it becomes so self-defeating for the music industry that reason will prevail.
what a load of poop. 
(it’s so sad, it doesn’t even deserve a swear word).
- One in 18 people has a third nipple. – which is obvious evidence in favor of Intelligent Design.
a la CHristopher Lee in Man With the Golden Gun…
actually, I have a third nipple. There’s nothing really weird about it, but my wife seems to like it 
That seemed so unlikely that I looked for it on Snopes, but 'tisn’t there, so I’ll have to assume it’s on the level. Very bizarre. I was under the impression that on this side of the pond royalties mainly apply to public performances for pay, which would exclude a riff in the music shop unless the tester had dropped his cap upside down.
Seems to me though, that if music shops are going to get hit with that, it would be more than appropriate that the London Tube Authority (or whatever it’s called, and also any public transportation system anywhere,) would be an even more likely candidate for that sort of levee.
Absurd, and if I were a shop keeper, I’d laugh. How could they enforce something like that? How could they tell one riff from another? Who’s to say any particular riff is copyrighted? The logistics of that exercise in stupidity stagger me.
Read it a little more carefully. It appears that there’s an annual tax on all musical instrument shops that must be paid even if no one ever plays one of their instruments. Just part of the cost of doing business.
I did a search just in case it might be a hoax…I found a bunch of news stories essentially similar to this one
it looks legit
Its called protection money. 
djm
Fork it over, mister pianoman, see?
Remember in “Waynes World” the NO STAIRWAY sign by the guitar rack? Now we know what that was all about!!!
Playing Stairway used to be just a superstitious “bad luck” thing…now it really will bring you bad luck! 
I like to freak people out when I go into instrument stores…I play stairway on the piano.
wanna really freak people out - play it on a mountain dulcimer!!! 
This can all be answered with pretty much one word:
Lawyers
Oh, did I just make it Political AND controvercial?
In my college days of playing what we called “Covers for Drunks” (which, for those less in-the-know involves 4 hours of drunken renditions of acoustic folk-rock, such as the Eagles, Greatful Dead, Van Morrison, Jimmy Buffet, etc., playing Brown-Eyed Girl, Margaritaville and American Pie back-to-back-to-back), I would often start the aformentioned song (Stairway), then after the initial pass through, play the entire tune in 5/4. It could almost pass as a Jazz standard when done that way …
