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Restaurateur Loses Copyright Suit To BMI

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-up dept.

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?"

13 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Surprise! by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    As many times as they possibly can.

    Obviously.

    1. Re:Surprise! by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  2. How many times? by NoKaOi · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    Infinite.

    1. Re:How many times? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:How many times? by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:How many times? by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    4. Re:How many times? by TheDarkener · · Score: 5, Insightful

      50% of BMI fees go to the songwriters

      *Which* songwriters is the real question.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    5. Re:How many times? by cptdondo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  3. Re:Trifling by tompaulco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    . 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.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  4. Re:Capitalist logic by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Capitalist logic by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. Re:From the TFA by The+Rizz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  7. A few.. by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.