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ASCAP & BMI, which are Performance Rights Organizations, both have started to establish internet distribution licensing. The major difference (and the reason they're not getting involved in this melee) is that PRO's manage the rights of music performances, for example: radio, tunes played in bars, or streaming audio. They handle licensing and pay the songwriters and publishers.

They don't handle the rights to the actual product that is a sound recording (such as a cd, or an .mp3) of a specific piece of music -- that's done by folks like the Harry Fox Agency (spawned from the NMPA, National Music Publishers Association) and the RIAA. They pay the artists (or more often, companies) who record the music, sometimes the same thing as the songwriters, but not universally. Both of whom are indeed involved in this and other litigation.

In other words, as I understand it, companies that stream their audio can pay licensing fees to ASCAP & BMI to cover the songwriters' royalties, but companies that distribute products (you possess the .mp3 file) are expected to pony up to HFA & the RIAA, and aren't -- thus the lawsuits. A relatively smooth system like the PRO's, transparent to the user, would be welcome.


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"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

Of course, this could end the whole thing, since who wants to pay to offer a service?

MP3.com is lisenced with the ASCAP (see here).

• Following last week's announcement by ASCAP of its historic and unique strategic relationship with MP3.com., the reaction from ASCAP members has been uniformly positive, with many expressions of support. Among the most prominent of ASCAP members to issue statements praising the agreement are pop/rock superstar Alanis Morissette and Desmond Child, the writer and producer behind a long string of pop, rock and Latin hits.

So MP3.com was definitely allowed to "publicly perform" the MP3's. I don't know how close that is to digitally reproducing them, but it at least allows radio stations to broadcast the songs.

If you check the RIAA's filing on the lawsuit, you'll see that they are suing MP3.com for copying the data from the CD to MP3.com's computers, not for actually distributing the data. It seems like quite a stretch to me.
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• Following last week's announcement by ASCAP of its historic and unique strategic relationship with MP3.com., the reaction from ASCAP members has been uniformly positive, with many expressions of support. Among the most prominent of ASCAP members to issue statements praising the agreement are pop/rock superstar Alanis Morissette and Desmond Child, the writer and producer behind a long string of pop, rock and Latin hits.

Dude, the DJ isn't the business manager.
Commercial radio stations pay royalties.
Check with ASCAP or BMI
These are the people who (among other things) do the collection of royalties.

In general you *can* perform John William's works - you just need to pay appropriate royalties. This doesn't mean you could use this music in your own commericial or movie - I believe you'd need to negotiate a license in that case. But for many other uses (like making a records) there are set mechanical royalities, and for other cases, like public performace, there are set fee schedules. Whatever the case you buy a license, you don't go to 20th century fox!

See ASCAP or BMI. for more info on public/internet/brodcast licensing.

See Harry Fox for mechanical licensing (used when your group records John Williams compositions for release).

Anyhow, the money ends up going to John Williams or whoever own the rights to his catalog (if he sold his publishing).

Radio stations pay a fee to ASCAP and BMI for the songs that are played on the air.

Most of my music is on MP3. I don't listen to the radio... but I realize, now, that I am my own radio station, with an audience of one, available 24 hours a day without commercial interruption!! (It's a great station. The DJ is deeply rooted in my subconcious...) If I'm a radio station... how do I support the artists I'm playing?

For non-profit stations the yearly fee from ASCAP is some negotiable amount less than 450 dollars.

Now 450 dollars a year is a bit pricy. I'm trying to find out what a non-commercial radio station pays in fees as I write.

ASCAP fees are unfairly divided between the record company and the songwriter. (So far as I know, bandmembers get nothing if they don't have songwriting credit)

ASCAP also requires you to complete and submit a playlist so that the proper authors get reimbursed.

Anyway, the key here is that a mechanism already exists that reimburses artists and publishers for their works without having to have purchased their media (cds,records,tapes). It sorta works. Perhaps it can be improved on.

I, Rhysling

"Radio stations are licensed (probably by the RIAA or a similar group) to play CDs on the air. It's very difficult, if not impossible, for a single person to get such a license."

Here are the clearances you have to play music on the radio:

Music Copyright. This covers the composer's ownership of the songs played. In the US, the principal agents for administering these clearances are ASCAP and BMI, although some songs (example: Mannheim Steamroller's music) are handled by SESAC. These folks aren't connected with the record companies or the artists... they're only interested in the songs. Most radio stations buy a blanket license for unlimited use of music, although you can pay on a per-performance basis. (BTW, ASCAP operates under an antitrust settlement going back a number of years, so what they do is subject to monitoring by the court.) You need this license unless: (1) You're not broadcasting ANY music (DOH!) or (2a) ALL the music you broadcast is public domain (major genre: Classical) or (2b) you (or someone else) have made arrangements directly with the copyright holder (You don't need a license for jingles if you pay the jingle company directly, and commercial advertisers are supposed to take care of rights issues themselves. You also don't need any license if the music is 100% your own work.).

Performance Copyright. Yeah, performances are copyright, too (that's the (P) mark you see on CD boxes). Performance copyright is relatively new in the US... IIRC, it started sometime in the 80s. Also note that you can copyright a performance even if the music performed is public domain. AFAIK, there's no performance clearance requirement in the US (although I've not studied the latest copyright revisions). If this is still the case, you don't have to pay anyone if commercial recordings are involved: Artists (and record companies) are supposed to make their money from the increased record sales that resulted from the stations playing their music. But there's one important exception: Live performances. If you want to broadcast a concert (or just a set from the local jazz club), be prepared to pay your friends at the Musician's Union for the privelege of doing so. [Warning to performers: Your local may still want its cut, even if you'd like to do a performance-in-exchange-for-exposure. Check with your business manager before making any deals!]

Grand Dramatic Rights. The only reason to worry about this is if you're going to broadcast a musical (also applies to operas and plays) in its entirety. Individual songs are covered by the music copyright rules above, but beware if you want to play the 3CD complete recording of Les Miz all at once. This is a real gray area, and the law has been unclear as to just where grand rights kick in... if you're thinking of doing this, consult a good IP lawyer first. Grand rights clearances are usually negotiated directly with the publisher/producer/holding company that controls the particular show.

Other comments: If you're a licensed radio station, you should have no trouble whatever getting an ASCAP or BMI license. (In fact, they should be glad to talk to you.) Unless the law has changed significantly, that's all you need to do the kind of broadcasting most people on this thread are talking about. Billboard publications has a good reference that explains all of this: This Business of Music. Most libraries have a copy.

Disclaimer: IANAL, and (at the moment) NOT in the radio business, so don't consider this as gospel! The penalties for copyright violation are severe, and the law is complex (with special provisions for not-for-profit or educational organizations, for example), so don't sign anything or do any broadcasting without the advice of a good intellectual property lawyer.

I think it's ASCAP does that; there was an article here on /. about them trying to collect license fees from web sites for even LINKING to another site w/ licensed music on it. Free radio sounds great to me, but don't think the, ahem, 'establishment' would like it one bit.

Chuck

It appears that that ["ASCAP wants to shutdown the WWW"] is their eventual aim.

And how do you come to this amazing conclusion?

But now we have ASCAP stepping in and saying that if I'm setting up a little page saying how much I like They Might Be Giants, and I want to link to emusic.com where they have some sample clips of TMBG music that they sell (legally), I have to pay a license fee...

No. What ASCAP is saying is that you cannot put a link on your page directly to those sample clips and pass them off as if they were your own. To do so, you would need to pay ASCAP licensing fees for distributing their member's music. As you said, "There are a lot of issues with framing other people's content, especially if you put ads in those border frames." ASCAP is claiming that one of those issues is that you need to pay licensing fees for those other people's (ASCAP members) content.

We could have online newspapers demanding you pay a fee to post links to their stories on your web page.

Actually, I believe there was a case wherein the Wall Street Journal sued another site which was posting WSJ stories within their frameset as if they were the other site's original work.

This, by the way, is what ASCAP is claiming is happening here. But you don't care about that, or you would have spent a smidgeon of time reading the actual article, instead of a whole lot of time shooting your mouth off.

As for ASCAP's guidelines for linking to their own site, most of them are just nice wordings of existing laws (copyright and others). btw, when they say false, they're talking factually false, not your inane opinions.

The last two, dealing with infringing and offensive sites, are probably not legally enforceable, but entirely understandable. What they're saying is that they would prefer you didn't say something like "these songs stolen from ASCAP members!" on your warez site, or similarly link from a porno site.

Third-Party Web Sites Seeking to Link

If you would like to link to ASCAP's Site, please read and comply with the following guidelines and all applicable laws. A Web site that links to ASCAP's Site:

• May link to, but not replicate, ASCAP's content.

• Should not create a browser or border environment around ASCAP content.
  
• Should not imply that ASCAP is endorsing it or its products.
  
• Should not misrepresent its relationship with ASCAP, its members, officers or directors.

• Should not present false information about ASCAP, its services or activities.

• Should not use the ASCAP logo, screen shot, splash screen or any ASCAP Marks displayed on this Site without permission from ASCAP.

• Should not be a Web site that infringes any intellectual property or other right of any entity or person, including, but not limited to violating anyone's copyrights or trademarks, violating any law or advocating illegal activity.
  
• Should not be a Web site that contains content that could be construed as distasteful, offensive or controversial, and should contain only content that is appropriate for all age groups.

Any Web site that creates a link to ASCAP's Site which ASCAP discovers violates these terms and conditions, ASCAP expressly reserves the right to request that such a link be removed and to undertake whatever other action it deems appropriate.

Alot of people don't realize the power that these companies wield (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). They have the legal right to enter any store, club, resteraunt, or place of business and demand to see proof of current licensing (with their company, of course). Let me qualify place of business: any retail or business site that plays music covered by ASCAP (& etc.) to generate revenue or productivity. In other words, if the store or office pumps the music over the phone or intercomm, then they are liable. This now includes web sites (you can check out their web licensing contract and fees at their respective sites-- ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). As you can see, they are rather steep--and you have to be careful who you link to.

I find that this truly bites for a couple reasons. The first, I wanted to set up a web site akin to mp3.com that you paid legitimate fees for copyrighted music so I could pay the artists royalties (a cause I deeply believe in). The licensing not only forbids that (I would have to individually contact every record company individually to do it), there fees are prohibitive. Especially the up-front fees. Secondly, it bites because if someone you directly link to decides to distribute music (in any format) on his site, I am liable. I think there reasoning behind it is that I generate revenue (?!) because of that link. I am glad that they can't make you liable for some moron who decided to do the same thing links to you site (you have no real control over that).

I have attempted to contact these companies for alternative liscensing agreements that would permit the site I wanted, but received no response. So, unless you can be assured that you can use GPLd music, you are SOL (remember, a band who does a cover of protected music cannot release their version under GPL, FPL, or any other open distribution license).

Ellis, love your posts, but gotta correct you on this one. BMI and ASCAP represent songwriters and not the artists who perform the music. They Liscense venues to play music and they make sure the songwiter get his/her cut. For instance lets say you go to see Bigod 20 at a venue that does not have a BMI license, Bigod 20 could not cover Madonna's Like A Prayer.



Then RIAA however represents the record companies (RC) and artists themselves attempting to make sure the RC and the Artists get their cut. Last months DJ Times had a great interview with one of the head dudes. I feel the RIAA needs a top down change, they need people in there who understand digital distribution and advertisng, right now the RIAA is so old and moldy it serves only to police and not to advance as was the original goal. The current assualt on digital music is proof enough that change is needed, they claim the companies lose money from MP3 when CD sales have been on a steady rise since MP3 became so widely available.



But I will sopt b4 I get too far off topic.
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Can We trust the future - Flesh99