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And to think I considered joining ASCAP


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I see both sides of it. The music business is a business and we are all trying to find ways to get music without paying for it. Something has to give. I was with the coffeehouses until the ASCAP guy pointed out that they are selling $4 coffee and can't afford a $1 day for music. That sort of puts it in perspective. Now, non profits should be left alone.

 

I have played many free gigs at backyard BBQ's in the neighborhood and posted the videos on YouTube. The only one who ever came after me was Van Morrison, or his peeps. But all I had to do was put some verbiage on the listing and refer them to the real Van Morrison while acknowledging that the song was his. If they want to take it to the extreme that I can't pull out my guitar at my child's birthday party and sing "Brown Eyed Girl" w/o paying PRO fees, then yes that is too much.

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Yeah... it's times like this that I really hate being an ASCAP member.

 

 

Around here (just south of LA), they can be real... jackasses. So to speak. (No slag on mules, donkeys and asses. I'm sure you know where I wanted to go.)

 

 

Back in the late 80s and 90s when I was doing a lot of acoustic gigs, particularly early on, I was one of the few folks around here who used (computer) printed lead sheets for his own songs. And that always got the BMI and ASCAP guys interested. (The coffee houses I played all had no-covers policies in place but there were certainly scofflaw artists who would sneak in covers.)

 

I don't know if it's true (haven't read the article yet, in case it talks about the issue) but I've heard that the ASCAP and BMI 'song cops' were basically bounty hunters who would get paid by the tip, making them super aggressive about reporting supposed covers.

 

They also were a little sloppy about what's a cover and what's not, since -- before I signed up with ASCAP on the release of an album in 2000 -- at least one ASCAP song cop supposedly 'busted me' for playing a cover, even though everything I'd done was an original and I hadn't yet become a member.

 

I don't want to call the accusation a lie -- but it certainly wasn't true.

 

I've complained to ASCAP before but, for some reason, I just don't carry the same weight as all those scummy publishers, sleazy labels and mobbed up industry types who run the commerical music biz.

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It doesn't just cover live music. All music played in venues in subject to the licensing fee: music on the radio, music coming from shows on TV, etc. If licensed music of any kind is played, ya gotta pay.

 

Copyrights don't jeopardize anything. Copyright is a natural right and you own the copyright the moment you create something. Registration of your copyright doesn't jeopardize anything. It's just a legal action to formally protect yourself in case you ever have to file an infringement, but iirc it doesn't really cover licensing, which is another step a musician takes so that he can reap the big royalties from coffeeshops. Copyright and registration of copyright aren't the villians. Neither are the PROs, though anytime you go after small businesses you're going to be perceived as a jerk.

 

I suppose you could only have non-PRO member musicians play the coffeehouses. Ban anyone affiliated with ASCAP or BMI. :idk:

 

Interesting to note how many copyright infringement suits that ASCAP and BMI file each year. I think that most of the copyright registration fees and PROs don't have much benefit for coffeeshop/local musicians as much as it helps the international, corporate-level musicians & lawyers.

 

One doesn't have to register with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. Creative Commons may be something to consider.

 

To sum up, kiss my ASCAP. :wave:

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It doesn't just cover live music. All music played in venues in subject to the licensing fee: music on the radio, music coming from shows on TV, etc. If licensed music of any kind is played, ya gotta pay.


Copyrights don't jeopardize anything. Copyright is a natural right and you own the copyright the moment you crat something. Registration of your copyright doesn't jeopardize anything. It's just a legal action to formally protect yourself in case you ever have to file an infringement, but iirc it doesn't really cover licensing, which is another step a musician takes so that he can reap the big royalties from coffeeshops. Copyright and registration of copyright aren't the villians. Neither are the PROs, though anytime you go after small businesses you're going to be perceived as a jerk.


I suppose you could only have non-PRO member musicians play the coffeehouses. Ban anyone affiliated with ASCAP or BMI.
:idk:

Interesting to note how many copyright infringement suits that ASCAP and BMI file each year. I think that most of the copyright registration fees and PROs don't have much benefit for coffeeshop/local musicians as much as it helps the international, corporate-level musicians & lawyers.


One doesn't have to register with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC.
Creative Commons
may be something to consider.

 

Actually, they try to extract separate license waiver agreements for live and recorded music. (And, as Stack notes, this covers any source, including the radio, where the station is already paying for a license to play the music. Too.)

 

SESAC has been a late comer to the coffee house license cop/bounty hunter thing around here. And I've never known a SESAC member in the 3DW, myself.

 

I just about fell down laughing when my favorite coffee house's proprietor told me she'd threatened to have a SESAC 'representative' bodily removed from her establishment by the police [she has a very good relationship with the police, which is strategic because it is very much a watering hole/cross cultural meeting zone where lawyers and society matrons sit at tiny tables next to gangsters and mohawked post-post-post punkers and neo-hippies]. The SESAC guy was apparently sputtering "You'll hear about this!" as he backed out the door. :D

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Actually, they try to extract
separate
license waiver agreements for live and recorded music. (And, as Stack notes, this covers any source, including the radio, where the station is
already
paying for a license to play your music. Too.)

 

 

Thanks for the clarification. The rules and laws they operate under are byzantine, draconian, and probably Klingon.

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I just question who these PROs are really representing. I think most songwriters would be happy that their songs are being played in such a venue. Yeah, everybody has to make a living and songwriters are no exception, but I don't think they're really out to nickel and dime the little guys to death. Music is meant to be played. It's meant to be heard.

 

Again, I feel they're going against the spirit of what music is all about.

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We had some guys from BMI and ASCAP show up at the club we were working.

They were trying to get the club owner to pay up on the songs my band was performing.

Since it was a Redneck bar it didn't take long for them to be shown the door and told not to come back.

I felt kind of bad for the guys, they were just trying to do there job.

Being grabbed by the back of your shirt collar and the seat of your pants

and walked to the door on your tippy toes let them know no fee's would be paid here.:lol:

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For some reason this reminds me the "Down Under" trial where the artist who wrote the Kookaburra (sp) song had no issues, but the big company who purchased the rights were the ones who were offended.

 

Companies just want the money. Barring someone touring primarily due to uncredited success with your song, I defy you to find an artist who isn't honored if someone else feels compelled to learn and perform their song.

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If you sign up with a PRO, then they naturally assume that you know what they are about. If you want your songs to be played without harrassment from a PRO, don't sign up with one. They are just doing the job you've asked them to do. The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.

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My biggest gripe is there is no attempt to determine who deserves to receive credit for coffeeshop-air-play. (A daunting task, but not unmanageable in the computer age). The Rights organizations are only out to protect their members. The money is divided up based on percentage of overall record sales. I don't see any coffee houses playing teeny popper rap. Yet that's who sells the most records.

 

And there's no need for multiple organizations. That defeats their overall goal. I know a bar-b-que joint that has live music. They pay into ASCAP, but not the others. They say if you're going to do covers, you should give the woman a list so she can check if they're covered. (If not you can't play the songs).

 

What a piece of crap.

 

The idea that an establishment that makes money (selling, lattes, or beers, or bar-b-q) should pay something to the artists whose music brings people into their establishment is a very valid and worthwhile thing to pursue. But it is so perverted as it stands that it's just a sad joke that discourages the legitimate promotion of music.

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Thanks for the clarification. The rules and laws they operate under are byzantine, draconian, and probably Klingon.

 

I believe this is true -- although the very broadly experienced Ronan Chris Murphy was saying in a thread on this topic over in Craig Anderton's HC forum that he thought one license covers both recorded and live performance.

 

But I've heard over and over again from coffee shop and other venue owners that they're two separate licenses (or at least separate tiers).

 

As you probably know, all commercial establishments are expected (by the PROs, anyhow) to pony up for any record players, canned music or even commercial radio that they have playing in their factory, office, or store.

 

The music, media, and publishing industries laid out some big bucks to buy the copyright legislation they wanted -- and they certainly are going to try to take advantage of it.

 

Does that sound cynical? Well, sorry, I've been watching politicians and big business for a long time. I'm in no way anti-business -- I'm a businessman, myself -- but when you see the legislative and political processes corrupted (and I'm not picking on any 'sides' here -- plenty of blame to go around from major parties to minor), I dunno, I just think buying legislation -- and by extension, legislators -- is wrong. Call me old-fashioned.

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My comments in this thread are, of course, strictly my personal feelings.

 

If you sign up with a PRO, then they naturally assume that you know what they are about. If you want your songs to be played without harrassment from a PRO, don't sign up with one. They are just doing the job you've asked them to do. The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.

There's a coercive process at work. In order to participate, the system imposed by statute forces artists into the grasping arms of the PROs -- it's a form of institutionalized legal protection racket based in large part on legislative processes bought and paid for by lobbyists who dumped huge amounts of money into politicians of major parties and whose legislative liaisons pretty much wrote most of the Millennium Copyright Act which updated major portions of US copyright law.

 

 

PS... Anyone reading between the lines above who thinks I'm aligned with or overly sympathetic to fringe, supposedly grassroots 'outsider' organizations doesn't know me. I'm a mainstreamer, a centrist, a moderate. I just want to see the corruptive influences of corporate money and lobbyists out of politics. I'm definitely not someone who, like the current majority of the Supreme Court, thinks that money has human and political rights. The legal concept of the corporation is a great one -- but its political power should be limited to one vote to one human -- let the stockholders vote or give their own money to political activies just like any other human. But keep the corporation and its special legal status out of politics. It's not a person. It shouldn't vote -- and it shouldn't buy votes or be allowed to buy politicians or legislation.

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So if the guy in the piano bar plays "piano man" but neither they, or the bar pay a licencing fee, they're in violation?

Yes. Also if they have a radio, CD player, tape, mp3 player, etc, playing in such a way that the public can hear it. Separate licensing, though as I understand it. One falls under mechanical licenses and the other, of course, under performance.

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My comments in this thread are, of course, strictly my personal feelings.

There's a coercive process at work. In order to participate, the system imposed by statute forces artists into the grasping arms of the PROs -- it's a form of institutionalized legal protection racket based in large part on legislative processes bought and paid for by lobbyists who dumped huge amounts of money into politicians of major parties and whose legislative liaisons pretty much wrote most of the Millennium Copyright Act which updated major portions of US copyright law.



PS... Anyone reading between the lines above who thinks I'm aligned with or overly sympathetic to fringe, supposedly grassroots 'outsider' organizations doesn't know me. I'm a mainstreamer, a centrist, a moderate. I just want to see the corruptive influences of corporate money and lobbyists out of politics. I'm definitely
not
someone who, like the current majority of the Supreme Court, thinks that
money
has human and political rights. The legal concept of the corporation is a great one -- but its political power should be limited to one vote to one
human
-- let the stockholders vote or give their own money to political activies just like any other human. But keep the corporation and its special legal status out of politics. It's not a person. It shouldn't vote -- and it shouldn't
buy
votes or be allowed to buy politicians or legislation.

 

 

I have a not for profit organization that fights for exactly what you've espoused. If you or anyone else would like to contribute, we're called "Citizens Against Senseless Hopelessness" you can make your checks out to CASH for short and I'll be sure they are put to good use.

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