Restaurateur Loses Copyright Suit To BMI

Frosty P writes: BMI claims Amici III in Linden, New York didn't have a license when it played four tunes in its eatery one night last year, including the beloved "Bennie and the Jets" and "Brown Sugar," winning $24,000 earlier this year, and over $8,200 in attorney's fees. Giovanni Lavorato, who has been in business for 25 years, says the disc DJ brought into the eatery paid a fee to play tunes. "It's ridiculous for me to pay somebody also," he said. "This is not a nightclub. This is not a disco joint . . . How many times do they want to get paid for the stupid music?"

Comments

Surprise!

[tnk1]

How many times do they want to get paid for the stupid music?"

As many times as they possibly can.

Obviously.

Re:Surprise!

[s.petry]

A couple sentences on a piece of paper with a signature would have sent the Thugs after the "disc jockey Disc Jockey" he hired instead of taking it himself.

I think you should check history before making such statements. The RIAA has a history of going after who will have the money to pay, not the responsible party. Perhaps the contract would have been used for the RIAA to go after both parties, but the guy with money always gets sued. Who has money here, the DJ or the business owner? Hint: I have not seen a wealth DJ ever.

Re:Surprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

My father who is only a self employed plasterer had to cough up 32000 euro for not paying licence fees to the music industry. The only thing he had was a car radio in his truck to listen to the traffic alerts so he doesn't get stuck in a traffic jam. The fact that his truck was a two seater implied that he was able to have a passenger who could eventually listen to the radio. Since he never paid a license and they could proof that my father had been working 'illegal' (= having a truck with a car radio) for at least 16 years (truck manufacturer were proud to put the 'free radio' on their invoice) was enough for the judge to decide the hefty fine (2000 euro fine a year X 16 years, normal license fee 500 euro / year).

Now where can a simple plasterer who has to work hard, make long hours and is always struggling to get the money from his customers get the knowledge about copyright licenses? Do also note that my father was born right after WWII in a completely destroyed country (first by German invaders, than by Allied bombing, and than again by German V2 rockets) and he had to start working from the age of 12 just like the majority of his generation. He could barely write his own name and had to learn to read, write and calculate in his little spare time. How can the music industry even justify a 500 euro / year license fee for the fact that you might have a passenger in the car who might hear some copyrighted music in between traffic alerts, and from an uneducated hard working, tax paying, law and god fearing individual? 32.000 euro fine is what you expect for a night club to that has never bothered to license their music. But a plasterer who has a car radio???

For my father something broke. He was considered a criminal, while he always wanted to walk in line, to never do anything wrong (in both religious and secular laws), to be a good Catholic. And than all of the sudden a fine that is even many times higher than what child molesters have to pay.
 
And the music industry? When they could not get money any more from the small, hard working entrepreneurs, they went after kindergartens were kids where singing copy righted children's songs (really just the children singing songs, not the schools playing the music because the schools already banned music because the license fees could not be afforded).

My Grandmother on Mother's side always said all bad things come from oversees. And apparently this abomination of copy right laws and private tax collectors is something that has to be stopped as soon as possible. It isn't protecting the right of poor musicians any more, it is stealing money from the hard working class who achieved something in live by working with their hands instead of having the luxury to get a college education. People like these were respected in the past, now they are just the primary target for swindlers and nobody cares for them, not the judges, not the politicians, not the rich musicians.

Re:Surprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

You might get a bit of sympathy if you told us which highly enlightened nation your father lives in.

And I assure you that "constantly pay money because you have a low-tech radio in a vehicle" did NOT come from overseas if you live anywhere they use the Euro. (From across the Channel maybe, but not from across the Atlantic.)

How many times?

[NoKaOi]

How many times do they want to get paid for the stupid music?

Infinite.

Re:How many times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Open your windows and play it as loud as you can.

What you do in your own home is private consumption.

Really need to start tacking RICO act violations to the RIAA ASCAAP, BMI, etc...

They are just thieves out to steal as much money as they can without benefiting anyone but themselves.

Re:How many times?

[geekmux]

If I buy a CD and play it in my home, how many others may be in the same room listening before I need to pay a fee? If a company buys a CD and plays it at their place of business, who else may be in the room listening before they need to pay a fee?

I do not know the answer buy my personal opinion is "as many as I want" unless as a business the main reason why customers are paying me is to listen to those specific songs, in that case I am re-marketing them.

In the case of a business, you're playing music for the same reason the artist is making it; to entertain others.

Don't want to pay for that entertainment? Fine, let your customers do whatever they want to do in your store in silence.

And it doesn't matter if our personal opinions match here. All that matters is the "logic" a lawyer needs.

Re:How many times?

[jedidiah]

They already did apparently. They just wanted to charge more than one person for the same "performance".

Re:How many times?

[TheDarkener]

50% of BMI fees go to the songwriters

*Which* songwriters is the real question.

Re:How many times?

[cptdondo]

Did you ever try to get a license for a "performance" like this? I did, once, just to see how difficult it is.

Turns out that, at the time, neither BMI nor ASCAP had a way to legally play their music unless you were a professional DJ, were pressing at least 200 CDs, or were re-mixing their music.

After 6 weeks of phone calls and emails, and getting shuttled off to various other agencies, it turned out that they had no license that would allow an individual or a business to play songs from their catalog for a single event.

Of course that does not prevent them from suing for lack of the same.

Good

[ebcdic]

When I go to a restaurant I want food, not music.

From the TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like BMI tried to be reasonable and get him to license the music but he ignored them. From his quotes it sounds like he probably pissed them off and they decided to go after him.

Re:From the TFA

[The Rizz]

It's not like the license is all that expensive or hard to obtain or that services to pipe in music don't exist. I don't feel bad for this guy, likely all he needed to do is stop playing copyrighted stuff when he was made aware of the violation and then obtain a license as required if he needed to continue.... Or, BUY a music service for his business from somebody and let them keep up with the licenses.

If you would RTFA, or even the summary, you'd notice that he already did that. He hired a DJ, who had already paid licensing fees to play the music.

At issue here is that the licenses were already paid through the DJ, and BMI was demanding that they get paid again because ... well, that's the question, really ... why should he pay the licensing fees again when the music is already licensed?

He should kill them

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop taking it on the chin.
Use violence. It's time for a revolt.

Re:Trifling

[tompaulco]

. Stories like this one is why I will never feel bad about piracy.

It should make you feel bad about being a pirate. By pirating music, you let the company know that you enjoy their music and are too cheap to pay for it. Instead, you should abstain from it altogether. If nobody bought it and nobody pirated it, they would get a clue.

and they wonder

[gonar]

and they wonder why people feel no guilt about pirating music. the BMI/RIAA/MPAA/most record labels are corporate middleman thugs who care nothing about the content they are "licensing" but only about how many $$ they can extract out of the pipeline.

how many of those $24k went to the 4 ARTISTS who's work was "infringed"? probably about 0.7 microcents.

how much "damage" was actually done to those artists by the infringement? they probably actually made money as likely somebody at that restaurant that night heard the songs, was reminded of a happier time in their life and went on iTunes and bought a Rolling Stones or Elton John CD.

Re:Not seeing past one's nose

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

> I can't think of the last time I have been in a restaurant where there wasn't music playing.

Yep, I can't remember any place I've been in the last few years that didn't have some crap blasting through their $5 speakers.

Jimmy Johns sub or whatever has the music so loud you literally have to shout to order food. We got sick of that shit real fast and left before the food came. It was just too damn loud, and the music was some mindless pop-horsecrap.

Seriously, restaurant owners, TURN THAT SHIT DOWN. It's background music, not a f*cking mosh pit.

Re:Capitalist logic

[TsuruchiBrian]

If you are going to mix physical and intellectual property rights, let's do it properly.

If you go to McDonalds and buy a big mac, and go home to eat it, but aren't actually that hungry and decide to share it with a family member, McDonalds should be able to sue you for unauthorized distribution of their property. When you purchased your big mac you were only purchasing the right for yourself to eat it, not the public at large. When you shared your big mac with someone who did not pay for it, you deprived McDonalds of a potential big mac sale, and are therefore culpable for restitution owed to McDonalds.

Re:Capitalist logic

[Opportunist]

Well, that's the problem about comparing music with, well, pretty much anything else: Everything else gets consumed and has to be replaced when it's being, well, consumed.

When he serves a meal, it's eaten and he has to redo it to sell it again (provided he doesn't engage in disgusting practices like "recycling" uneaten food). When my bartender serves me a cocktail, he has to make another one if he wants to sell it again. Pretty much anyone but content providers have to manufacture something again after they sold their original one if they plan to sell another one.

That's not the case with content. Content can be reproduced ad infinitum at little to no cost. There is very little else that you could use as a commodity that shares this trait.

A few..

[JBMcB]

One license for transferring music data off a storage medium. One license for converting digital music data to an analog form. One license for each speaker reproducing the sound, including woofers and tweeters. One license per 10m^3 of space where the mean audio is within two deviations of the average loudness of the music.

If you are listening to said music, you need a license for that, and another if you are planning on remembering listening to the music, plus a re-performance license if you are going to hum a substantial portion of the primary melody in the shower later.

Re:Poor guy never answered the complaint

[russotto]

And that's the end of any sympathy they might have had coming from me. No matter how ridiculous the lawsuit is, if you don't answer it, you deserve to lose.

One organization sues people to justify its existence. The other makes food. No point in the second bothering to answer in court any more than the BMI lawyers should agree to a cook-off. The outcome in either case is pre-ordained, and answering can only drive up the costs.