Despite 60,000 signatures, the petitions committee of the Bundestag will take no action against the PRO.
Found on Resident Advisor on Friday, 09 November 2012
The petition, which began circulating in August, specifically protested the so-called "GEMA presumption," i.e. GEMA's method of deciding tariffs for clubs and festivals based on the assumption that they own rights to 100% of the music being played there. The reasoning behind this is that it would be too difficult to sort out which tracks were or weren't written by GEMA members.
One study by Berlin's Club Commission sampled everything that was played at Berlin clubs like Watergate and Weekend over one weekend, and found that as many as 35% of the records played were unknown to GEMA.
So the GEMA keeps basically 35% which it charges without any legal reason, simply because politicans say it's too cumbersome to figure out which songs are not covered by the fee. It may be bad for the club culture, but it wouldn't be too bad if they all have to close thanks to those ridiculous fees. Soon the GEMA and politicians would realize that they are depending on the club scene; but then it would be too late, and the GEMA would vanish.