I think it would make more sense if the license to perform music was paid by the musicians, not by the venue. My reason for thinking this is that the musician has a vested interest in the ability to play music... much more so than the host. The venue sees the costs incurred to offer live music as a liability to be circumvented. When this circumvention takes the form of trying to slide in under the radar... and they get caught... the predictable result is twofold:

1) that venue stops hosting live music
2) other venues take note of what happened, and some of them stop hosting live music too

If the license followed the band instead of the venue, then more places would be willing to host live music, and everybody would win. It would also open up many small venues that could never justify the cost of a license (such as those who only host live music a few times each year, like the one in this example)

It would also give licensed musicians an edge over those who tried to compete without their own license.

Last edited by Pat Marr; 11/18/18 06:50 AM.
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