01-16-2020, 10:24 PM
Many years back, late 80's or early 90's, the music police came down on me for having a local radio station playing as music on hold. Had/have some Panasonic phones that have a 3.5mm jack to play any source you attach to it for "on hold" music. Since I had a business listing for my home based business, the multi-line phone(s) had both business and home lines on 'em.
It was OK to listen to the radio at home/work, and for a caller to hear the radio in the background, but put that caller on hold, and they can still hear the same radio station playing, and then I owe some outfit thousands of dollars? WTF is up w/ that nonsense? I even called the radio station, and they were happy to have their station "on hold", but the music cops were still aggressive. I eventually bought a widget that plugged into the hold music jack that played royalty free music. The music cops still persisted for awhile, and at that point I told 'em they could pound sand a few times, and they must've finally given up.
My take was that the "enforcement officers" were nothing more than collection agents working on commission, and that their sole goal was to harass as many people out of as much money as possible, regardless of what "fair use" really entailed. If/when they realized you weren't their next pot of gold, they harassed the next schlemiel.
If we generously averaged 50 calls a week on hold for a one song average; not including station ID's, DJ banter, and of course commercials. Each "audience" would be a massive count of one person, I couldn't figure out how the music cops could even justify their ask.
Thanks for dredging up these wonderful memories. Not!
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It was OK to listen to the radio at home/work, and for a caller to hear the radio in the background, but put that caller on hold, and they can still hear the same radio station playing, and then I owe some outfit thousands of dollars? WTF is up w/ that nonsense? I even called the radio station, and they were happy to have their station "on hold", but the music cops were still aggressive. I eventually bought a widget that plugged into the hold music jack that played royalty free music. The music cops still persisted for awhile, and at that point I told 'em they could pound sand a few times, and they must've finally given up.
My take was that the "enforcement officers" were nothing more than collection agents working on commission, and that their sole goal was to harass as many people out of as much money as possible, regardless of what "fair use" really entailed. If/when they realized you weren't their next pot of gold, they harassed the next schlemiel.
If we generously averaged 50 calls a week on hold for a one song average; not including station ID's, DJ banter, and of course commercials. Each "audience" would be a massive count of one person, I couldn't figure out how the music cops could even justify their ask.
Thanks for dredging up these wonderful memories. Not!
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