http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150329_The_day_the_music_____spied.html?utm_content=buffer68d7f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

what do you think?

Holy sheet.....

I've got no dog in this fight and my live band days were a long time ago from 1974 through 1980.
No problems gigging Tuesday-Sunday at clubs with (2) casuals frequently on Sat/Sun.
We were mostly an all original band but about 10% were a few select covers.
(IE Steely Dan, Little River Band, etc.)

To think it's come to this for small gigging bands and club owners in small venues is astonishing.

IMO...bands doing covers in a club scene (who are not getting rich I might add) should be a non-issue and be looked upon as free advertizing for the original writers/bands....nothing more.
Yes...for the record...I'd feel the same if it were my songs being done by other bands.
I'd guess the one's that feel they need to be compensated in some fashion (in this context) also played some covers to get started on their music path also....the irony.

BMI wants to collect a 'licensing fee'!
Ha...if I were club owner on the receiving end of any of this I'd offer them a blunt hand gesture and hold them accountable for putting small venue clubs/hard working bands out of work.

But, that's just me and the music world turns much differently these days...to my dismay.

Carry on....

Record, CD, or other media sales are nose diving for everyone, so the music mafia, (read big producers and record companies) are fighting back and will use every means possible to scrape every last penny out of a rapidly emptying pot.
Stupid to be penalising small clubs and businesses who inevitably will stop live music and just pay the minimal license fee for a juke box or pre recorded background noise.
Thankfully the UK isn't as badly hit with this nonsense as yet, but no doubt it will come over here eventually.

Yeah... close to 30 years ago, in a house band gig, the owner of the club came to us and asked for our set lists as far back as we had them.

Seems ASCAP came a knocking. They cataloged the songs on his jukebox and when they saw the band gear on the stage, they wanted our set lists.

He never did tell us what that visit cost him but he was clearly not happy about it so we didn't push him to find out.

I played a couple of gigs last month where I had to play only "public domain" songs. I still played whatever song I wanted, just didn't play the copyrighted melodies. BMI and ASCAP must make billions.............Ray

We should be charging them for promoting their material, no?

An interesting related thread on this, fairly recent on this forum, is this: http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=252392&Searchpage=2&Main=36125&Words=ASCAP&Search=true#Post252392

Hey Herb,

Just saw another instance of the BMI police in Tampa, Florida.....

Bar Owner Sued Over Music

lyrics are copyrighted too, not just the melodies. I'm curious how you got around that with the NPD cover songs.

I watched it and saw these two guys don't have blue eyes...

Actually it should be public knowledge by now even in the US that the organizer of a musical event is responsible for licensing. Get informed, public. Not knowing the law doesn't leave you not guilty if there is an infringement.

That should be known especially if you have a venue that has music played for public.

It is not in the responsibility of the musician! I only know of one exception. In the US square dance callers have to buy a license to play their music and the square dancing clubs are off the hook. These ASCAP and BMI licenses are sold with the membership dues of Callerlab and American Callers Association.

From Ray's wording I am assuming he is playing instrumentals. Chord progressions are not copyrighted so one can play the chord progression of a well known song and play either an original melody or an original melody with original lyrics. However you can not play a copyrighted hook or instrumental.

Hi, guys !

This is no easy question !
I have a lot of copyrighted music
myself,but as I am not making
a living out of it, I can afford to
be very generous about how people
would use my music ! In my opinion, though,
it seems that copyright associations
now and then seem to go over the top
as with the suggestion over here that
even taxis would pay licensing fees for
music played to customers during
transports ! I do not see any other
way than that the copyright holders
and the customers must be able to work out
solutions that are fair to everyone -
and that usually means that everyone has
to give in a bit ! If not there is a risk
that copyrighted music will be performed
at private occasions only and that would
probably hurt both sides - what you can
hope for is that both sides are able to
excert what you would call "common sense" !

Cheers
Dani

In Germany they do, taxis pay their dues. Compared to the US we are special. We have to pay to GEZ to legally receive public sector broadcasters. AFAIK they don't pay GEMA yet (GEMA is the German equivalent to BMI and other PROs).

If a musician is hired to play in a public accessible venue, two things happen:
1. The business owner has to notify GEMA about the event.
2. The musician has to provide a playlist to the owner.

If this playlist is all license-free music, then nobody has to pay. If this playlist has one tune included that is registered with GEMA or any of her sister origanizations in another country, then the entire event is to be licensed.

There are too many different fees to list. Here is the fee for bars and restaurants and such playing music from sound carriers.
While the fee itself might be substantial in a total perspective, for most venues it is assessable. The fee depends on the size of the venue in square meters. For a bar providing background music without dancing the annual fee is between 185.80 and 541.30 Euros plus VAT. For a small bar that is 50 Euro-Cents a day for a big one it's about € 1.50.

I suspect that it is similar in the US.

My understanding is - the copyright holder must aggressively defend his rights or risk losing them. That's why we are seeing so many frivolous law suits.

A famous pizza chain was recently sued for singing the Happy Birthday Song to children. I believe it's still under copyright protection (or was at the time).

I truly think the law has exceeded it's intent. It's easier to satisfy "aggressive defense" by suing a "little guy" than to become mired in the courts with the "big guns" for years.

I once sought a patent, the Patent Attorney said that suing for infringement could ruin me financially. I backed away.

Forrest Mims III, inventor of the LED, spent virtually millions of Loonies aggressively defending it, eventually ruining him.

In the Discovery Phase, agents would come in the middle of the night and conduct "legal search and seizure" of his research documents. He eventually won against Monsanto and Bell Labs but he was a broken man. Read his story in his riveting book: "Siliconnections".

"We don't need no steenking Gastappo!"

Addendumb: Purists may argue that the LED (Light Emitting Diode) was more a discovery than an invention.

Forrest Mims III determined that photons of light jumped across a PN junction of a semiconductor diode as it rectified Alternating Current. He proved his theory and the LED was born (invented/discovered).

His knowledge (suspicion) of the existence of the photon phenomenon puts him more in the inventor side in my mind, although a moot point.

That's an issue with trademarks ("Kleenex", "Coke", "Xerox", "Google", "Windows"). If the word falls into common usage as a generic term, the owners can't claim it uniquely identifies their product.


I've brought this up before, but the history of "Happy Birthday" is convoluted, and there's a lawsuit wending its way through court right now arguing the song should be in the public domain.

It will be in the public domain in Europe by end of 2016 regardless of that lawsuit -- seventy years after the passing of the last surviving author.

Cocoa Cola works hard to protect their trademark. I encountered a gentleman that worked for Cocoa Cola corporate in Atlanta. His full time job was as a secret shopper. He traveled the US to visit establishments that sold Pepsi Cola products. He would order a Coke then document the server's response. The preferred response is similar to this, "I'm sorry but we serve Pepsi products, will that be okay?" Incorrect responses resulted in a polite "you need to train your help better" letter from the corporate lawyer. In a typical workday he visited thirty to forty places that included everything from Mom & Pop stores, to movie houses, resturants, fast food places and bars.

I didn't mean to imply that Forrest Mims III is a pauper; far from it. I believe he sold many millions of books on many diverse subjects.

An interesting aside about Forrest...he was commissioned to eavesdrop on the late billionaire Howard Hughes who lived in a well-guarded penthouse atop some skyscraper at the request of a tabloid magazine. He refused but explains how he would accomplish the improbable task in his book Siliconnections.

Any ideas as to how it could be done? Hint: It required absolutely no physical contact with Howard or the building. I'll let you chew and digest the problem until later. (Forrest Mims III is rated as among the smartest men of his time. Some sources say top 5).

I'm guessing a laser microphone.

David wins a new Lamborghini immediately upon receipt of 300,000 Loonies Sales Tax.

Forrest Mims III predates current surveillance techniques by decades but suggested training a IR laser beam on a large widow. Any voices within would modulate the laser beam and would be readily demodulated by the listener/receiver. A large glass window provides an excellent "timpanic membrane". The very heart of today's audio "bugging" devices.

Good on ya, David!

What's the exchange rate for Loonies? I looked them up under fictional currencies but couldn't find 'em.

I do remember as a teenager going into Radio Shack, and wondering why all their electronics books seemed to be written by the same guy.

Check C$, in Wikipedia. Loony is slang for Canadian Dollar because they picture a Loon on them.

When I lived in Seattle, C$ were approximately par with US$. It was never a concern when going into BC for a few "Blue Brew". I think the current exchange is about 1.06 : 1.

Thanks! I never knew that.

Dave,
loonie or toonie?
Which would you prefer?

Google 'loonie toonie canada'

signed,
'nuther border guy

A caution to the uninitiated: If you wonder why you're knee and elbow walking after a few Molsons; Canadian beer is typically 6% as opposed to US beer's 3.2-4%.

I would tease my Canadian friends about their color-coded money, now ours is. "Greenbacks" is now an obsolete term.