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Location: SE Michigan | So if the clamp-down on TAB sites pissed you off, take a look at this:
http://www.newcitychicago.com/chicago/4925.html
This whole music royalty thing is getting ridiculous. Don’t these people get the idea that if I cover someone else’s song it’s like free advertising? In today’s age of satellite radio and self-publishing I would think they would want all the exposure they can get for their music.
What if a bar-owner hires an artist that does all of his or her own material (or material that is not covered by ASCAP)? What if you play a song and switch some words around or change the arrangement a bit?
It’s really a shame. Lately I’ve been noticing fewer open-mic venues around the Detroit area. I wonder if this is part of the reason why? |
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Location: SoCal | ...if I cover someone else’s song it’s like free advertising? heck, they pay me not to play their songs :rolleyes: :eek: :rolleyes: |
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Location: SE Michigan | almost every song that is recorded, as well as many arrangements of "traditional" songs like "Happy Birthday," fall under the jurisdiction of ASCAP or BMI, the other licensing agency. Fees are collected for music on CDs, downloaded music, radio airplay, jukeboxes, live music and theatrical performances, music played in bars, restaurants, elevators, cell phones, on television networks and in films. Even the Girl Scouts pay ASCAP a fee for music performed around the campfire.
So does Chucky-Cheese have to pay an ASCAP fee because people sing "Happy-Birthday" at their kid's birthday party? |
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Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | More insanity.
Suppose I go up and do a three song set at my local pub's open mic night. What exactly is the royalty I'm supposed to pay, and how do I pay it? As a practical matter, do they really want the paperwork hassles that would come from full compliance?
These guys are nuts.
Jeff |
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Location: USA | The bar or club pays a standard fee.
When you establish yourself, thats when they come after you.
http://www.myspace.com/styllheartandsoul |
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Location: Omaha, NE | What is a "standard fee"? Is someone supposed to keep track of every song played? If not, how are the royalty payments computed?
Jeff |
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Location: NJ | They pretty much base it on the amount of people that you can "potentially" expose the material too. They do the same thing with sports channels (like the YES Network). They calculate how many people may be exposed to it, and figure out how much you owe. . .
I may be wrong, but I believe that ASCAP/BMI get paid a fee when you have a juke box in an establishment as well.
I've seen a lot of places give up live entertainment because of this . . |
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Location: Upper Left USA | More reasons to play in church! |
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Location: south east Michigan | That's why they don't sing Happy Birthday at frachise eaterys.
At Texas Roadhouse Steakhouse you get a YEEE-HAA.
This open mic thing is nuts though.
Looks like we will have to go the way of the blind pig and the speakeasy. "pssst..Elvis sent me" |
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Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | As posted by MWoody;
More reasons to play in church!
I like playing a lot of the old hymns, Public Domain. :D |
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Posts: 1922
Location: Canton (Detroit), MI | This is why I've headed for trad music....if it has a copyright, I won't play it outside the walls of my home.
Roger |
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Location: nyc area | the Harry Fox Agency, in NYC is the organisation that collects royalties for artists that have songs covered by other artists.. there is a law that lets anyone record anyone elses songs, as long as they pay a small fee... I have a new jazz/blues standards cd about to be released, and i payed 8.5 cents a song per cd, which I was happy to do, its the right thing to do, as I will sell the cd... however, paying royalties for open mike performances is rediculous, IMHO |
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Location: Midwest | My Top 40 band was getting bugged by Assgap from the seventies until I retired in 1994. (they probably started bugging someone else) They never got a nickel, but they sure got some Club owners P.O'd. I guess with the "Win" for the industry against downloading music they feel they have some merit again.
We would alter our songs so they were not exact copies of the originals. Back then they didn't have a leg to stand on, now they have a podium... |
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Location: Avondale, AZ | Lately I’ve been noticing fewer open-mic venues around the Detroit area. I wonder if this is part of the reason why?
No Brian, it is because there is less talent in Detroit these days. They keep migrating here for the weather. |
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Location: Tennessee | I agree that charging a royalty for open mike performance is over the top. However, I can see the policy for a club that books a top cover band and charges to get into the club. There are a lot of bands making some pretty good scratch covering 70's R&B/Funk, Classic Rock, etc. If they're making a living off of other peoples IP, they should pay the royalties. After all, most of the people are coming to listen, dance and sing along to the songs. The band playing the music is just vehicle for the original song.
On the other hand, the situation reminds me of a similar situation when the IRS put their agents on a commission for collecting additional taxes from filers. Things got very nasty and those "agents" were dirty dealers. I had a very unpleasant rumble with those bastards. Congress finally woke up and rewrote the legislation, but not before a lot of otherwise reasonable people got screwed. Maybe ASCAP and BMI decided to hire some aggressive "enforcers" and put them on commission. |
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Location: south east Michigan | if it has a copyright, I won't play it outside the walls of my home.
That is sad.
Winston Smith was just 21 years to early.
Fahrenheit 451....15 years from now we will have to gather in a remote forest to verbaly pass music on from person to person.
Would Dylan not want "Blowing in the Wind" to be played? Would CSN&Y want to restrict the playing of "Ohio"?
Because today's manufactured, pansey-ass boy bands will never have enough quality material for even half of a greatest hits CD, do they feel they need to squeeze every penny out of "Hmmm-bop" to support them and their bling for the next 30 years??? |
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Location: Madison, Wisconsin | "pansey-ass boy bands"? WOW! Just for fun, what kind of beer do you drink? |
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Posts: 1922
Location: Canton (Detroit), MI | WOW!!!! GO, BRAD, GO!!!!!! Can we throw Britney and Jessica in there for good measure????
EVENTUALLY (but probably not within my lifetime), all the music we love WILL BE public domain/trad when the copyrights expire. And Pete Seeger has got the right attitude NOW.....he never cares to do anything to restrict the playing of his songs.
Roger |
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Posts: 234
Location: Phoenix, AZ | Originally posted by Slipkid:
Would Dylan not want "Blowing in the Wind" to be played? Would CSN&Y want to restrict the playing of "Ohio"? Apparently, the answer is yes. Otherwise they could both release the songs to public domain and allow unlimited playing royalty free.
If these artists were to actually live a lot of their own writing (i.e., walk the walk instead of just talk the talk), they would, in fact, release their songs to public domain and would refuse royalty payments, asking their royalties be spread over the bottom 20% of royalty receivers. However, please remember a great many composers have long ago sold their rights to their songs (remember hearing about the sale of the Lennon-McCartney catalog a long time ago, and to Michael Jackson, no less), and the copywrite holders are now investors wanting increased returns on their investments. |
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Posts: 338
Location: SE Michigan | I found this quote from Woody Guthrie on another guitar forum:
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." W.G. Also Ive heard that churches have to pay ASCAP/BMI fees because a lot of religious music is covered by copyrights, that is unless they only play the older non-copyright stuff. Seems strange because a church is (in theory) a non-profit organization. |
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Posts: 2487
| Nothing like shooting off your own foot! You have got to be Fuc&ing Kidding me!!!!!!!!!!
personally I say sue me!!!!!!!! I'd love to be the first guy to run this one through the courts!
These guy's are like little kids who because they are loosing want to take all the marbles with them.
I know there are copyrights but hey unless a cover band is milly vanillying the actual bands own music played through the system then I would say it is not an exact copy and considering the damage to the whole music industry from loss of equipment sales (Like Ovation Guitars) because musicians have no legal outlet to bother using them These idiots will destroy themselves to prove a point!
NUTZ! |
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Posts: 146
Location: Ct./ USA | My creative blood is starting to boil. Fellow guitarists, write your own music then "THEY" can GO ......... |
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Posts: 6197
Location: Phoenix AZ | It seems to me that if they just went after all the Elvis impersonators, they could fill their pockets with more than enough coin and they could leave the rest of us alone ... |
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Location: NJ | . . . but if THAT were t'happen Dave, we'd ALL be paying for Las Vegas' unemployment benefits . . . |
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Posts: 1300
Location: Madison, Wisconsin | Churches pay a CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing International) fee or they are suposed to anyway. We never did until we got a new music director and we are now copyright compliant. Even if I download songs from Music Now, we have to pay for enough copies for everyone in the band. |
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ASCAP going after live music and open-mic venues
