October 6th, 2008
Hollywood to kids: Pay up for preschool movies
The scene: An Irish preschool for toddlers. The children sit on the floor in a semi-circle, watching a TV screen. They squeal with delight at “The Little Mermaid,” “Toy Story” and other Hollywood kids’ fare. Enter a black-masked villain, carrying a fearful letter. He is not the true villain, though; he only does the bidding of his heartless masters.
That’s the picture in Ireland after the Motion Picture Licensing Company, which collects royalties for Disney and the other Hollywood studios, came down on 2,500 preschools across the country, demanding a fee of €3 plus a 17.5 percent VAT tax per child per year, The Times reports.
Grinning over the messenger’s shoulder: the Irish Preschool Play Association, which on behalf of its members had talked the MPLC down from €10 a child. The letter offered the schools an “umbrella license” to cover all the fees.
“To be honest, when I got the letter with the IPPA newsletter I laughed and binned it,” said Paula Doran, manager of Kiddies Korner, a community playschool in Shankill, south Dublin. “If we brought in something like that the parents would have to pick up the costs. But I don’t like the way they went about it — once you signed up they’d automatically take money out of your account every year.”
“I don’t think too many judges would come down hard on a playschool over this,” she said. “We would rarely show DVDs anyway because it’s frowned upon — kids get enough TV at home. The odd time we would pretend to go to the cinema. We give the children tickets and they watch 20 minutes of Snow White, Fireman Sam or SpongeBob.”
But it gets better: It turns out the MPLC is in violation of Irish law because it hasn’t registered with the Patent Office.
A spokesman for the Patent Office said that if an organisation collects money but hasn’t registered it may be fined or staff may be jailed if a complaint is made and it is found guilty
They’ve applied for registration now. And hey, an MPLC spokesman said, they’re not the bad guys here either.
“We were able to convince the studios to [settle] for this low fee. Traditionally, film companies charge € 100 or more for a single showing of one title.”
Guess it all goes back to the Mouse.
