SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts. A writer says it's a workers' rights issue | CBC Radio
You may not give a second thought to the tunes spinning on a constant loop at your favourite café or coffee shop, but one writer and podcaster who had to listen to repetitive music for years while working in bars and restaurants argues it's a serious workers' rights issue.
"[It's] the same system that's used to ... flood people out of, you know, the Branch Davidian in Waco or was used on terror suspects in Guantanamo — they use the repetition of music," Adam Johnson told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.
"I'm not suggesting that working at Applebee's is the same as being at Guantanamo, but the principle's the same."
Earlier this year, irritated Starbucks employees took to Reddit to rage about how they had to listen to the same songs from the Broadway hit musical Hamilton on repeat while on the job. One user wrote that if they heard a Hamilton song one more time, "I'm getting a ladder and ripping out all of our speakers from the ceiling."
Johnson argues it wouldn't take years of research to understand that "yes, playing the same music over and over again has a deleterious effect on one's mental well-being."
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @04:12PM (5 children)
I replaced the shitty elevator music cassette with Twisted Sister... Corporate got mad when they called and were put on hold.
(Score: 5, Touché) by looorg on Monday March 04 2019, @04:41PM (1 child)
So they didn't want to take it anymore?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @07:43PM
On the day when a branch office was being closed down and everyone was getting exit interviews...one of the techies put on cassette of Johnny Paycheck, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj2iGAifSNI [youtube.com]
Since the small crew from corporate wasn't familiar with the office space, they didn't have a clue how to turn it off.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday March 04 2019, @06:29PM (1 child)
Your "shitty elevator music cassette" had one big advantage: it was licensed for public performance. Corporate would have rightly feared a copyright infringement lawsuit from Dee Snider's music publisher over your having performed Twisted Sister's copyrighted music through a transmission to the public. Consider that Snider withdrew permission to play "We're Not Gonna Take It" [blabbermouth.net] from a candidate in the 2016 US presidential election once the candidate took a turn toward social conservatism. Even for a piece as uncontroversial as Maurice Ravel's "Boléro", playing it over a U.S. line prior to January 1, 2024, would probably anger Ravel's estate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @07:49PM
Technically yes. But the infringement might go on for a long time and be heard by many, many people before the rights-holders would do anything. One of these claims happened here (many years ago) with a bar playing broadcast radio instead of going through Muzak or other copyright-paying music supplier. It had been going on for 6 months or a year before the initial warning letters started.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday March 04 2019, @11:21PM
My father once did similar as a senior in Catholic school with some friends, except they replaced the annual Christmas Assembly record in favor of Simon & Garfunkel's 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night. Their school's administration was not amused (though the auditorium full of teenagers sure as hell was).