Recently someone from BMI called our friends saying they have to pay a licensing fee to have live music at their place of business. Since paying both BMI and ASCAP far exceeds the amount of money they would have made in extra coffee and sandwiches, this effectively means we can't play there anymore.

 

Now I understand songwriters need to get royalties for the profits made using their work. But Van Morrison and Tom Waits were never going to see a dime of the fee as a result of us playing their music. It seems like a shakedown.

 

From what I've read, it's not uncommon for these organizations to target small businesses they know don't have the cash to pay legal fees.

 

Yes I'm just complaining, but I'm curious to hear other's experiences about this kind of thing. 

 

If you have the permission to play the music from the copyright owner, (like if I played all Epignosis covers) everyone is covered. If we play all originals, we're covered.

 

A business using music pays a yearly fee, whether you're a restaurant with a jukebox, a bookstore piping in a CD, or apparently a coffee shop with artists playing cover material.

 

Apparently, by strictest law, if you play covers live, every member of the band is supposed to be able to produce the legitimately purchased sheet music to the songs they play. . But the agencies typically don't go after artists (until it's obvious their pockets are deep enough) but do target businesses.

 

Regular music venues pay this stuff as the cost of doing business, but it really is an undue burden on very small businesses.

 

In addition, these organizations are notoriously poor at paying out to artists. The typical scenario is they shake down a business, if the fee is paid, they're never heard from again. If no payment, they can come, listen to your set, and say e.g. Van Morrison is a BMI artist and you played "Brown Eyed Girl," they can actually recover up to $20,000 per song. It's a racket.

Both the artist and the venue, in theory, make money. Therefore, they should both pay to use other artists' work. These middle men collect the money from anyone they perceive as making profit from their artists' work, and then pay out royalties accordingly.

 

Unfortunately, they only pay out when it is clear and obvious when a specific work was used for a specific profit. But they collect on anyone who vaguely is profitting.

 

Classic middleman BS.