ASCAP Declares War On Free Culture, EFF

Andorin writes "According to Drew Wilson at ZeroPaid and Cory Doctorow, the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), a US organization that aims to collect royalties for its members for the use of their copyrighted works, has begun soliciting donations to fight key organizations of the free culture movement, such as Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge. According to a letter received by ASCAP member Mike Rugnetta, 'Many forces including Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and technology companies with deep pockets are mobilizing to promote "Copyleft" in order to undermine our "Copyright." They say they are advocates of consumer rights, but the truth is these groups simply do not want to pay for the use of our music. Their mission is to spread the word that our music should be free.' (Part 1 and part 2 of the letter.) The collecting agency is asking that its professional members donate to its Legislative Fund for the Arts, which appears to be a lobbying campaign meant to convince Congress that artists should not have the choice of licensing their works under a copyleft license."

Comments

Re:Good.

[zill]

You seems to have forgotten your sarcasm detector, sir. Here, have mine.

Coffee shops

[michaelmalak]

ASCAP is already preventing coffee shops from hosting independent artists.

For Henderson business owner Mike Hopper, his coffee shop, Mocha Joe, was the perfect environment to let local artists showcase their original music. At least that was the plan until the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers said otherwise.

[...]

However, Hopper said it was just a misunderstanding between him and the organizations. He then called to explain that the unsigned bands were playing 100 percent original songs.

"I am 100 percent in compliance," Hopper said. "I'm not charging cover at the door. I'm not paying the bands, and they are just playing songs they wrote. They essentially said to me, 'We don't care. We have this low-end licensing fee you must have because there is a chance your band might play a cover song.'"

[...]

Looking at potentially paying a total of $1,800 in annual fees to the three agencies and the possibility that he would be shut down permanently, Hopper discontinued music at Mocha Joe.

Re:Coffee shops

[Adrian Lopez]

Holy shit. After reading the above I started searching Google for other instances of similar bullying and found this:

"[Hines said] 'Hey we need to sit down and talk and I've got some contracts here for you to sign.' I was like, 'Who are you again?' He told me and said, 'Yeah, it's been real difficult to get ahold of you. You've been avoiding us. I'm here now and you need to take care of this. You don't really have a choice in the matter. We need to sit down and you need to sign this paperwork with me.'

...

"I said I didn't have time to talk with him then, that he could send me something in the mail or email me but I don't have time, as far as I was concerned we were in compliance with all of the licensing or copyright laws.

...

"He was, 'James, James you don't have a choice. I'm leaving this right here. If I don't get this paperwork from you soon, the next person you see will be an investigator. They're going to come in and you're not going to have a choice.' I said, 'Prove that we're violating your laws. Find a song that you own the rights to that we're playing, it's not going to happen.'

"He said, 'That's not how it works, James. It's going to be too late. By the time we have an investigator come in, we don't have to prove anything.'

I'm not usually a violent person, but if some ASCAP pisher came to my place of business and said those things to me it is very likely I'd end up in jail for assault after breaking the bastard's nose with a baseball bat.

Re:Coffee shops

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Sioux City, Iowa of all places, and our band has seen this shit tried on two bars that I've played at. We called the fine gentleman who left his card and told him we were not ASCAP members and played only original music. He responded that it only takes four chords before we infringe on his artists' songs, and it was simply not possible for us not to infringe.

ASCAP are assholes, but what about the artists who belong to them? Isn't their membership the reason ASCAP can even exist?

Re:Good.

[king neckbeard]

For the millionth time, copyright infringement and stealing are very different things. If anything, released works 'belong to' the public, and authors, and the authors are just 'borrowing' certain rights from the public, so the closest thing to 'theft' would be the Sonny Bono Act, which actually deprived the general public of its rights, with the retroactive parts presenting no gain for the public.