Interesting.

I'm curious about how this works. Say a venue buys an ASCAP and/or BMI (not to mention SESAC) license - do they then report every single song they play throughout the year to ASCAP and/or BMI (and/or SESAC)? How are they supposed to do that (assuming they're using a regular old CD player and not itunes)? And if they don't, how do the artists get paid?

Jesus, Grandy, get a proofreader and better sources for stories. Two line out posts about Seattle Times stories in two days is way, way lame.

here's a link to the actual article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003815486_royalty01.html

Has ASCAP heard of Girl Talk? I wonder how Neumo's handled it last weekend.

Sorry for the broken link. It should be fixed now. And, #2, nobody proofreads the blog—it's the internets!!!1!

I have a friend that owns a bar. They didn't have any kind of system set up to pay ASCAP when they first opened, so they went about a year before ASCAP came knocking. (who know about this kind of stuff when you open up a bar?) Anyway, they ended up getting a service like Muzak, which pays those fees automatically when you sign up. Plus, you get some pretty great music.

I don't know how long Ibiza has been open, but those ASCAP cats come around sooner or later. Was it a case of someone willfully not paying the piper?

Are ASCAP in cohoots with the Muzak folk or what? I've been DJing bars here in SF (just spinning records, I'm not a turntablist or whatever the term is) for probably 8 years and have never heard of this until friends of mine from Seattle where talking about it. It smells like a shakedown.

And for fucks sake, most of what I spin is AT LEAST 20 year vinyl and some of it from overseas, how the fuck would I determine who the rights were filed with? Come to think of it, what if only 5 people are there when I spin, and I know all of them (I'm popular!), is it still considered "public" performance?

If you do some more reading on the issue, ASCAP, BMI, and others are threatening to shut clubs down whose artists' perform covers, as well. Not good news for cities like New Orleans, or basically any club who's act play blues, jazz, or country standards and aren't financially stable.

I work at a video content provider in Seattle (we work with Muzak)that programs music videos for retailers and hospitality enviroments & what I understand is that each business (ie:club/bar/restaurant or even DJ) is responsible for paying their own ASCAP/BMI fees unless they subscribe through a service like ours, which has those fees included. Depending on how large your venue is and how many locations there are is contigent on the pricing. It could range anywhere from $10/month to $60 which I think is pretty affordable for most businesses.

Also, musicians should think twice before covering their fave Beatles or Rolling Stones songs because ASCAP/BMI rules & regulations apply to there too...
Here's a story: storyhttp://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070222/NEWS/102220054

I'm a BMI member but that thing about busting bands for playing covers has always pissed me off. I know it's rarely enforced, which is as it should be because it's bullshit. I got a membership with BMI because because they do protect songwriters from getting ripped off by radio, labels and other mass-communication venues, but I can't imagine why I would ever wish to stop somebody from playing a live cover of a song I wrote in some two-bit bar (not that this is an especially likely occurrence anyway.)

It's basically an attempt to stamp out thousands of years of musical tradition. Musicians play covers because audiences love them and in most cases prefer them (sorry, but it's true.) The idea that I shouldn't be able to sit down and strum out some three-chord song on the guitar without mailing a check to Mick Jagger (who most likely ripped it off of some penniless black dude) is insane.

As a member of BMI or ASCAP, is it possible to audit where your royalties are coming from, specifically? In other words, as the copyright agencies pursue more revenue streams (i.e. the issue at hand), are the songwriters benefiting at all from it?

Dougsf: The idea is that they track how often their member artists' songs are being played through sampling when exact figures aren't available. So the licensing fees are also a means of bringing venues in line so that the specific songs played there can be tracked and those figures can be used in determining royalty distribution.

I still say fining a club $30,000 because somebody covered "Black Dog" onstage is insane. Hopefully they'll get around to busting weddings, senior proms and campfires next.

just last week when i came across this job posting for a part-time music researcher, i thought that it may be related to busting businesses for violating copyright:

http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?ipath=EXIND&siteid=cbindeed&Job_DID=J8M0RV616DNDT0FTM4Q

• Conducting in-person research in businesses as assigned by Pre-Legal Team

• Completing a detailed report of music used in a business during in-person research

looks like this maybe just the tip of the iceberg with this!

For concerts, ASCAP/BMI/SESAC are all calculated on the actual paid attendance (the drop count). The per head multipliers change with venue capacity. Not sure how that calculation applies to restaurants.