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Music Industry Shaking Down Coffee Shops
realjd writes with news out of Florida that music licensing companies are now hitting small bars and coffee shops that offer live music, even if only occasionally and even if the musicians don't get paid. One coffee-shop owner told musicians they can only perform their own songs from now on. "A restaurant owner who doesn't even offer live music was approached for payment for having the TV on while the Monday Night Football theme played. And if the owners pay up to one licensing company, all of the others start harassing them, calling four times a day, demanding payment too. It sounds like they don't even check whether any copyright violations occurred, they're just sending bills to any business that may or may not have live music."
Before you guys get all worked up, remember that it's NOT the RIAA behind this. It's the LICENSING companies.
My coffee shop was shaken down by ASCAP a couple years back, and they were very clear about the fact that even if it was original music, they still wanted to be paid. In fact, when I pointed out we did not have a stage and did not have live music, They said in no uncertain terms that since we could not absolutely prove to them that no music was ever performed there, we had to pay anyway or face litigation, prosecution (yea, right), and an injunction shutting us down. That and what they wanted was not just a grand or two, I don't remember, but it was excessive. We told them to piss off and gave them our attorneys number, and we never heard from them again. Other shops in the area did pay out, though, and one CLOSED because of the legal harassment. What a racket.
The purple onion is still there, they just moved a block over to a new location.
A cover is not a derivative work, it is a performance of the song, which is the melody and lyrics. A cover is usually using the melody and lyrics in their entirety, even if the arrangement is change (and arrangements do not have copyrights). Weird Al is protected because it is a derivative parody and satirization, which is specifically protected under copyright law. Further, I would bet that he/his label licenses the music anyway just to be safe.
I mean, Weird Al does derivative performances that copy nearly exactly the music of some artists (he usually alters only the lyrics) and every time he does a M. Jackson song he gets sued by MJ, and he always wins. What's the difference here?
He still has to pay royalties to the song writer. Note, by this I mean the person who wrote the music, not the original lyrics.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
The way I understand it, there's a concept of compulsory licensing in the music industry. If you want to perform a cover of another artist's song, the other artist can't stop you from doing that (imagine you're Slayer and you want to cover a song written by Oral Roberts). But you do have to pay the original artist; I believe the agreed-upon fee is a set percentage of the profits of your recording.
... if you worked at your college radio station, you might recall that radio DJs are required to keep meticulous records of all the songs they play. The flat-fee approach for bars and restaurants allows them to avoid this recordkeeping.
For venues that allow live music, which might "give public performances" (i.e. play out loud) any number of songs, the way they work it is that ASCAP/BMI offers a program where the venue can play a flat fee that allows them to play unlimited songs.
For radio stations it's a little different
Most bars actually don't complain about this, because for them the fee really is actually fairly reasonable. People come to bars to get drunk, order more beers and shots than they originally planned, plug quarters into the juke box and the pool table, and the bar owner is happy. Few people buy more than two lattes at a coffee shop, on the other hand.
It sounds to me like the coffee shop owners aren't getting "shaken down" any more than any other business (like a bar or restaurant) is. What they seem to be saying is that, unlike bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, they can't afford it.
Breakfast served all day!
Performance rights organizations been doing this for years. At least, ASCAP has been.
They've shut down mom-and-pop bars that rent juke boxes from vendors but didn't pay a the fee to have music in their public place. You'd think that buying the CD would be enough to cover the royalty, but no. You'd think that because almost all the money goes to vendor who owns the machine that it would be the vendor's problem, but no. Go over to ASCAP site and read through the press release archive ... every year they sue the business out of a dozen or so places that they decide to make examples of. It's only a tiny, tiny fraction of the business not paying the license, but if you put one business out of business, every remaining business in that market will pony up if it can.
But every year the fees go up and up and up. And now it's way way way more expensive to pay the fee than to risk it.
I ran a newspaper that wrote a story (reported by Michael Carmody) about this last year. Here's a solid quote from the story that supports what I'm saying:
I don't know. Ask the Mexicans.
Two points:
1. Many of the people you refer to as Mexicans are actually from Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, Peru, etc. Washington policy has always wanted latino labor to be a cheap, exploitable commodity. US corporations have always seen Latin America as their rightful property, toxic dump and political/military playground. The influx of latin immigrants (whether they come from Central or South America, northern Mexico is the portal to the USA) is just another example of selfish and shortsighted Washington policy coming back home to roost.
2. It's a two way street. Do you have any idea just how many gringos live in Mexico? Quite a lot. In fact, many more than you might imagine. Just check out most of Baja, San Miguel De Allende, Cuernavaca, Merida, etc. And it's not just Mexico, of course, gringos are everywhere.
From the OP: What is it there in the USA that people, even some Britons (I live in Britain today) want to live there??
While it's true that some people from all over the world may want to live in the USA, let's not ignore the fact that a large number of USA citizens have had it up to here and bailed ship already.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I used to be in the DJ biz in the 80's and I know several still in it today. Absolutely NONE pay BMI or ASCAP fees of any kind. Most have resorted to simply changing their business name yearly to hide.
From what I have seen I would bat that nationwide that 90% of party, bar and school DJ services are not paying the fees.
just work under a LLC and rent all your gear. If they catch you they wont get crap.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Coolio's "Gangsta Paradise"
Itself a blatant ripoff of Stevie Wonder's "Pasttime Paradise", from "Songs In The Key Of Life". If anybody, Weird Al should have gotten permission from Stevie. Is Coolio so deluded as to think that this work actually belongs to him? Talk about pretzel logic! Oh well, nothing makes sense anymore.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I don't even know where to begin.
The radio play (etc.) was traded for the extended copyright several years ago.
The license is for live music, and the royalties (less about 10% admin) go directly to composers, and the formula, though complicated to a layperson, is pretty clear.
The license for broadcast music is different, and because of the massive number of broadcast stations, is pro-rated by random surveys.
The copyright for arrangements lies with the original owner, but arrangements of public-domain materials can be (depending on the extent of new material) be copyrightable and licensable.
The Girl Scout thing was just stupid -- even though the law was on their side, we ASCAP members (it's a membership organization where each composer votes on the board) raised a ruckus.
What's the fee? It depends. We have a performance organization and our royalty bill for 2006 was $29 because we listed what we played. Want a cheaper bill? Have the cover bands keep a performance log, and pay exactly the amount of the bill.
Nothing is hidden. ASCAP operates under a decades-old court order allowing it to represent its member artists, and has to go back to the court for every change. Otherwise, we'd each negotiate individually, and the last thing a presenter needs is to be descended on by the lawyers for thousands of composers.
I know this is Slashdot, but this multi-age mangle is just bizarre.
Dennis
We Are All Mozart