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ASCAP Seeks Licensing Fees For Guitar Hero Arcade
Self Bias Resistor writes "According to a post on the Arcade-Museum forums, ASCAP is demanding an annual $800 licensing fee from at least one operator of a Guitar Hero Arcade machine, citing ASCAP licensing regulations regarding jukeboxes. An ASCAP representative allegedly told the operator that she viewed the Guitar Hero machine as a jukebox of sorts. The operator told ASCAP to contact Raw Thrills, the company that sells the arcade units. The case is ongoing and GamePolitics is currently seeking clarification of the story from ASCAP."
Ya well the problem is that ASCAP is a DIFFERENT licensing entity, one of the many of the music industry's screwed up model. So ASCAP isn't about licensing specific performances of songs. They don't deal with with the license for a CD or the like. The deal with public performance licenses. This applies no matter if you are talking about playing a recorded song, or a band playing their own version of it. They want licensing money for the composer if the song is played in public.
So it is a different group wanting a slice of the pie for different reasons. You can have a license for the copy of the music you have, but NOT a license to perform it publicly. Yes, it is rather stupid.
ASCAP is also another one of those nice, mandatory, monopoly-type organizations that some how gets away with operating through special legal loopholes for them.
Pretty good thoughts, thanks. (And nice you mention the farmers' market analogy -- our daughter runs a CSA called Tangletown Farm and depends on farmers' markets.)
I'm an ASCAP member, and have been for 20 years. Unlike bands, I'm a composer. I don't do gigs; I write the stuff that's played at gigs. Even more unmatched to the usual /. complaint, my music isn't pop, and it comes off a sheet of paper or computer screen to performers.
Although my distributor sells some paper scores and parts, I allow download of all my scores and parts for musicians who want to print them by themselves. So that means I live almost entirely on the royalties from licensed performances -- and it isn't much, I'll tell you, because schools are exempted if it's part of the educational program, religious institutions are always exempted, and there is a host of other exemptions, such as ringtones and other nonprofit uses and even work-for-hire where rights are given up. Do I get a mountain royalties if my piece is played on the radio or cable or broadcast television? Nope -- unless my piece is caught in the random surveys used to determine royalty amounts; despite hundreds of broadcast performances in 20 years (including a repeated feature on the Discovery Channel), no piece of mine has every had the good fortune to be surveyed. Yes, I get royalties from outside the U.S., such as my $2.95 from Taiwan last month. Stunning. I'll be driving to a performance of a big orchestral work in January, a six-hour round-trip. My royalty for that performance will be about $100.
ASCAP collects these royalties for me, and I don't pay for that privilege. They do the work, take a very small percentage, and I get the occasional check. They lose money on me and probably the majority of their composers. Are they crazy sometimes? Sure, like when they wanted royalties from the Girl Scouts for singing "Happy Birthday". But that crazy is also a reminder that there are performance rights granted in law and managed for many composers by their membership in groups like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and their international counterparts.
Could I do it myself? Sure, if I wanted to locate performances in Finland or Portugal or Belgium or Tulsa or Grand Rapids, and send a bill. But I am happy that ASCAP does that for me and I can keep working as an artist.
Most composers are in this position. You don't know their work as a big stage act, but you hear it in concert halls or small venues or as part of documentary films/videos or on public radio.
That's where those licensing fees come from, and they go through licensing representatives who work for us individual composers.
Dennis
You googled ASCAP and failed to find anything? Try looking at anything but the first result maybe? Hell even the third pointing to wikipedia gives it away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Composers,_Authors_and_Publishers#Criticism
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson