Re: News: Lawsuit Seeks To Silence Indy Karaoke Bar

[John LeBlanc]

"Jay Kadis" > wrote in message
...
> In article > Steve O'Neill
>
> writes:
> > I'd like to know when they're going to go after DJs.
> >
>
> And cover bands.

Well, I guess that depends on where the DJs and cover bands perform. In a bar,
the bar owners (hotel, convention hall, what have you) are responsible to the
licencing issue. There are exceptions to licencing. Generally so long as it's
private, no admission fee is charged, and the affair isn't open to the general
public, a license isn't issued.

John

[Pat Janes]

In article >,
"John LeBlanc" > wrote:

> There were apocryphal stories of BMI goons "shaking down" bar owners for
> checks,
> but from a songwriter point of view, I thought that was perfectly okay by me.
> Shake 'em on down.
>
> Before this article, I really don't remember the last time I read a news
> story
> about licensing agencies hitting the streets to enforce this stuff. Another
> "voice in the wilderness" trying to hammer home the point that music isn't
> free.

A lot of people don't understand that a CD doesn't come with any public
performance rights.

SOCAN - http://socan.ca/ - does this sort of stuff all the time. I've heard
of clothing shops in the small city where I live that have been sent
invoices because they play CDs as background music. Some paid up, some
huffed and puffed and switched to playing the radio instead. Most of the
bars and nightclubs have SOCAN stickers on their doors showing that they
use music legally.

SOCAN also collects fees based on gross revenue from every TV and radio
station in Canada, a situation that I understand is different from that
in the USA.

[Monte P McGuire]

In article >,
Jay Kadis > wrote:
>And the jukebox. But how many neighborhood bars are in compliance? I rarely
>see the ASCAP/BMI stickers in the window anymore.

Is it the venue's problem or the jukebox owner's problem? Most of the
time, jukeboxes are placed into clubs and they're pretty much 'hands
off' to the venue. They don't see any money from them and probably
would have less than zero incentive to handle music licensing because
of them.


Regards,

Monte McGuire

[Jay Kadis]

In article > (Monte P McGuire)
writes:
> In article >,
> Jay Kadis > wrote:
> >And the jukebox. But how many neighborhood bars are in compliance? I
rarely
> >see the ASCAP/BMI stickers in the window anymore.
>
> Is it the venue's problem or the jukebox owner's problem? Most of the
> time, jukeboxes are placed into clubs and they're pretty much 'hands
> off' to the venue. They don't see any money from them and probably
> would have less than zero incentive to handle music licensing because
> of them.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Monte McGuire
>

The place we're playing must own their jukebox since they've asked us for a CD
of us to put in it. This is a smallish neighborhood bar. The larger clubs we
played used to display ASCAP and BMI stickers in their windows, but I don't
recall them having a jukebox, so maybe this was for live music?.

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ----x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x

[ryanm]

"Jay Kadis" > wrote in message
...
>
> The place we're playing must own their jukebox since they've asked us for
a CD
> of us to put in it. This is a smallish neighborhood bar. The larger
clubs we
> played used to display ASCAP and BMI stickers in their windows, but I
don't
> recall them having a jukebox, so maybe this was for live music?.
>
One bar we play in has an "online jukebox", which is a regular looking
jukebox, but instead of having cds in it, it has an internet connection
(requires a dedicated phone line, but that may come with the service), which
connects to a subscription service with millions of songs in their catalog.
You can pick any of the millions of songs (it has a search function), and
presumably, the service pays the fees. It has some sort of hard drive inside
to cache the most recent or, I would guess, commonly played songs, and also
presumably tracks which songs get played and whatnot. I don't know, they
wouldn't let me lift the hood on it. : )

ryanm