[Dixielandjazz] Who is BMI?

Sun Apr 15 21:58:24 PDT 2007

Here is what I replied off list to Phil Eggers (who with his wife Gerri, by 
the way are VERY enthusiastic fans of OKOM) about his outrage with ASCAP and 
BMI:

It is always the location that pays the licensing fees, not the musicians. 
This is part of the reason our era of music is dying out in terms of live 
performance in clubs/bars. Owners and managers of great places to play are 
not willing to pay the licensing fees, so live music is out. It seems like 
ASCAP and BMI and others are shooting themselves in the foot really. If live 
music is put out of business in an area, one of their revenue streams dries 
up. I don't really understand their logic.

I ran into this problem last year when I tried to play one night a week at 
our local pizza place. They did not want to pay anything because then they 
would want to advertize, and as soon as a venue advertizes "Live Music" 
ASCAP, BMI, and at least one other licensing organization turns up demanding 
licensing fees. Between all three, the fees for Goat Hill Pizza would have 
been about $1000 per year. There does not seem to be any kind of sliding 
scale, or anything. Another problem at this location was that the owner was 
already paying licensing fees to the same organizations for playing 
background music on his CD player.

It's all very well and good that composers and their estates and other 
copyright owners (now usually some big corporation like Time Warner or Sony) 
get paid for public performances of their music, but ASCAP and BMI base 
their payments to composers on local current airtime which means in our 
case, when I play an evening of compositions/songs written almost entirely 
before 1940, some #1 hit rock band that has a lot of radio air time gets a 
percentage of what the venue has to pay in licensing fees because the music 
we play has literally or practically zero play time in our area.

It used to be that a representative would come to a club and "sample" the 
music so that the fees might at least be sent in the general direction of 
the true copyright owners.

Here are some interesting articles:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/03/BUGL13CH5H26.DTL
http://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html

Last year I thought of a possible solution to this problem: start a 
Traditional Jazz Licensing Fee fund. Bands can
apply to this fund to get full or partial fee payments that locations can 
use to pay off ASCAP and BMI. I haven't thought through the details but it 
might be a possibility.

Scott Anthony
Golden Gate Rhythm Machine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: <santh at pacbell.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:54 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Who is BMI?

> List-Message-Recipient: santh at pacbell.net
> sharp-b at clearwire.net asked about BMI (polite snip)
>
>> Just exactly who are these people who show up and demand this money
>> and level the fines? Do they actually have the legal authority to do
>> so? ?Are they from out of town, just sweeping through, threatening
>> people with fines, hoping they'll pay up??
>
> BMI is a performing rights organization which collects license fees on
> behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers that it represents
> and distributes them as royalties to those members who works have been
> performed. They represent 300,000 + composers/publishers and have 
> 6,500,000
> songs under their control. ASCAP probably has more.
>
> They issue licenses to various users of music like radio and TV stations,
> internet music providers, ringtones, nightclubs, discos, restaurants,
> jukeboxes, live concerts, etc. They then track the public performances of
> members music and collect/distribute royalties to them. Easily tracked in
> large venues, radio, TV, Downloads, etc.
>
> So far, so good. HOWEVER. In restaurant, or other small venue live
> performances it is impossible for them to track whose music was played. So
> they charge a flat fee to those venues which is calculated on venue size,
> and number of performances per year.
>
> ASCAP and SESAC operate in similar fashion.
>
> Who get those live unaudited Royalties? Probably only the top
> composers/publishing houses. Probably not the composer or publisher of the
> songs we play in the Dixieland genre.
>
> Fees, start around $600 per year for a blanket license plus $35 per live
> performance. In essence, assuming all 3 companies go after a venue that 
> has
> OKOM on weekends, that is $1800 for the three licenses and $35 times 3,
> times 104 or $10,920 per year, plus the $1800 for a total of $12,720 
> payable
> by the restaurant, or pizza hut, or what ever. Maybe that's why Shakey's
> quit having banjo groups perform? Who needs to spend an extra $12,720 
> above
> the band cost when you can use radio music without charge.
>
> BMI represents 300,000 + composers, publishers and has 6,500,000 songs 
> under
> their control. ASCAP has more.
>
> That's why public domain songs are important. Any song published before
> 1/1/23 is no longer copyrighted and therefore not subject to license 
> charges
> of any kind. However, since Congressman Sonny Bono got a copyright 
> extension
> law passed before he skied into a tree, NO SONGS THAT ARE COPYRIGHTED 
> AFTER
> 1/21/23 WILL ENTER PUBLIC DOMAIN UNTIL AFTER 2019. (Because under the Bono
> law, songs copyrighted between 1923 and 1978 are now protected for 95 
> years.
> So those 1923 songs, plus 95 more years of protection = 1/1/2019)
>
> You can probably bet the farm that when 2019 arrives, some "poor" soul
> crying about intellectual property will lobby Congress for additional
> extensions. It is a shameless rip-off. But it is also quite legal and if
> push comes to shove, BMI et al will most always win in court should they
> bring a suit and the fines are a lot larger than the licenses.
>
> Partial solution is to carry a list of public Domain Songs with you and 
> play
> them, and or write and play your own music. Show the list to Guido from 
> BMI
> when he shows up to check a venue. :-) VBG.
>
> BTW, songs copyrighted after 1978 are protected for the life of the last
> living author plus 70 years.
>
> Now you know why Michael Jackson bought the rights to a lot of Beatles
> tunes. They constitute a money factory for him.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
>
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