[Dixielandjazz] The price of playing standards - even on subliminal gigs

[Charlie Hull]

A keyboardist friend who lives near a rural mountainous community in 
Northern California told me this story.

He plays one Saturday night a month, as do three other solo musicians, 
at a small local restarurant that serves beer and wine. The owner, who 
likes live music and is trying to support it, was approached by ASCAP 
which demanded fees because live musicians were assumed to be playing 
ASCAP songs there. The owner contracted with an organization which 
provides recorded background music and assured him that all copyright 
fees would be handled by them under the contract. ASCAP told the owner 
that that contract does not apply to live music, and is demanding over 
three hundred dollars a month in fees. The owner may have to give up 
live music as he doesn't have the space for enough extra customers to 
make up the difference. You'd have to prove to them that the musicians 
are playing only original material not copyrighted by any other person.

The question is: How did ASCAP find that this remote dining 
establishment is using live music?

The probable answer: The restaurant has a website on which they state 
they have live music.

The copyright fee vultures undoubtedly scan the Internet searching for 
"live music" and other phrases which may lead them to new victims.

Be wary of what you put on the Internet. Help employers of live music to 
be aware of the possible consequences of what they say on their websites.

The irony of all this is that where the Fee Monitors used to have 
minions watching live TV and movies and monitoring radio broadcasts to 
keep records of the use of copyrighted material, they now use sampling 
methods which do not cover all broadcasts, so they miss many actual 
usages for which they could charge fees and should be paying royalties 
to the composers and musicians. Those composers and artists who didn't 
get monitored in the sampling get no fees for undetected usages.

However, don't fear that ASCAP, BMI or the Hal Leonard agency will be 
going hungry. They will probably make up for those undetecteds by 
scouring the internet for copyright violation criminals like that little 
restaurant in the mountains. They have the law on their side and the 
legal resources to sue and win, and could care less about whether the 
restaurant survives.

Charlie Hull

.