So, I figured out this relatively simple slip jig that was on Gaelic Storm’s CD “Tree”
(track 13, first tune in the set). I then looked at the liner notes to find out the name
(it’s “The Caterpillar”), and saw that it was written by their fiddler (at the time),
Kathleen Keene. Since I had originally considered teaching this tune to folks to be
played in a session, I was wondering: is playing copyrighted music in a public session
frowned upon?
I would have simply shelved the tune, and stuck with trad tunes, execpt for this:
Our old slow session was being held in a coffee shop on Sunday afternoons.
One day, a representative of BMI talked to the owner of this coffee shop, and
told her that if she had any kind of live music, she had to put up an anual fee
to cover any copyright issues. She didn’t want to pay this fee just for us
(understandably), so we lost that session. Anyway, if a venue has ponied up,
do you folks feel that there’s a problem with sessioners playing a trad-style
tune or two that is not in the public domain?
Those BMI louts did that to a place near me…they told them they would continue to have people playing original music and music that was in the public domain and to try to do something about it. They went away after that. There’s really nothing they CAN do to stop such things.
I haven’t heard about this issue affecting ITM sessions, but ASCAP apparently has undercover agents who lurk around in music venues looking for copyright “violators.” This story was in the SF news last year:
The pub in which we have our sessions on Tuesday nights, pays the SOCAN (in Canada) fee to play recorded music and live music.
As to copyright tunes not in the public domain, that is something totally different. You could play that tune you learned from Gaelic Storm straight as recorded and take you chances that some undercover SOCAN or ASCAP spy hears it and rats you out. Or you could change a couple of bars and give it another name
One of 'em came into my son’s restaurant and said that he had to pay just for having recorded music playing–even though it was all by Korean musicians who probably had no connection with BMI at all. This particular rule applies even to a dentist who has a radio playing in her waiting room–as though she is somehow making money by making things a bit more pleasant for her customers.
It’s been pointed out on other forums that the fees that are paid in these cases don’t go to the performers of the music that is actually being played, nor to their publishers, but are divided out on the basis of total sales within the music marketplace. As I understand it, you may be pretty sure that pop idols like Brittany and Beyoncé will get just about every penny that your pub owner pays for the privilege of playing CDs of Irish performers for his customers.
It seems like double-payment to me, as CD publishers and radio stations have already paid fees on the music–and have passed that expense on to their customers or advertisers. Just using music to add a little atmosphere hardly seems to warrant an additional fee on top of the one that has already been paid.
I’d be quite happy to have it pointed out if I’m wrong about all this, as most of my info is based on hearsay.
What’s particularly obnoxious is that the BMI reps seem to have a sort of bounty hunter status.
I haven’t heard of anyone being arrested for playing ‘Fields of Athenry’, ‘Fiddler’s Green’ or the theme from ‘Wallace & Gromit’ over here yet.
Maybe we haven’t cornered the market in petty bureaucrats after all. Some must have emigrated.
They will be soon, the Licensing Act 2003 is about to kick in:
· 110,000 on-licensed premises in England and Wales would lose their automatic right to allow one or two musicians to work. A form of this limited exemption from licensing control dates back to at least 1899.
· Churches outside London would lose their licensing exemption for public concerts.
· Thousands of private events, hitherto exempt, become licensable if ‘for consideration and with a view to profit’.
· The same applies to any private performance raising money for charity.
· A new licensing criterion is introduced: the provision of ‘entertainment facilities’. This could mean professional rehearsal studios, broadcasting studios etc will be illegal unless first licensed.
· Musicians could be guilty of a criminal offence if they don’t check first that premises hold the appropriate authorisation for their performance.
· Likewise someone organising a karaoke night in a pub.
· Buskers: similarly potential criminals - unless they perform under a licensing authorisation.
· Church bell ringing could be licensable.
· But… broadcast entertainment on satellite or terrestrial TV, or radio, is to be exempt from licensing under this Bill.
The penalties for breaking these new laws, for owners and performers is a maximum of a six month jail sentence or a £20,000 fine.
Don’t worry Gary, you can use the Redesdale Amendment. Lord Redesdale (Gordblessim) managed to get an amendment to the bill exempting Morris Dancing and other associated traditional performances. Even if sessions aren’t specifically mentioned all you need is everybody to learn one Morris tune and have a belled-up dancer on hand to leap into action if the busies come round.
“The Licensing Act will for the first time extend entertainment licensing across all private members clubs, and registered members clubs. It also captures private events, such as charity concerts, if they seek to make a profit - even for a good cause. The Act also creates a new category of offence for the provision of unlicensed ‘entertainment facilities’, which would include musical instruments provided to members of the public for the purpose of entertaining themselves, let alone an audience.”
“As now, where featured entertainment at pubs and bars is concerned, local authorities will be empowered to impose any condition relating to the provision of even minimally amplified live music which they consider ‘necessary’ for public safety and crime and disorder unless the premises qualifies for, and uses, the conditions concession for unamplified live music. If local authorities argue, as they have consistently in the past, that because live music may attract more customers than usual the installation of more toilets is necessary (public safety), or door supervisors are needed (crime and disorder), the only way for the licence applicant to challenge the conditions will be via appeal to the Magistrates court, or application for judicial review to the High Court. Both routes are are potentially costly and risky for the applicant, and likely to be beyond the means of smaller businesses. The delay between lodging an appeal and the hearing date can be months. And while licence conditions pertaining to regulated entertainment are in dispute the licensee must refrain from providing the entertainment, or implement the condition.”
And we all know where our glorious “Local Authorities” stand when it comes to making a quick buck out of fines:
“Recent experience indicates the lengths to which some local authorities go in applying the letter of the law. A landlord was fined £500, with more than £1,500 costs, for allowing four of his regulars to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ (without an entertainment license); another was threatened with court action when patrons were seen to be ‘tapping their feet’ to, and therefore being ‘entertained’ by, unauthorised music. The new Licensing Bill provides even more opportunities for ‘jobsworth’ interference in harmless activities.”
So… what’s next? Are we going to start seeing patrons fined for that toe tapping? “The nerve of these people! Enjoying themselves! How Dare They! And to music! I mean, what do people think music is for, after all?!?”
PErsonally, I’m kind on the side of the fence that says, “to enjoy and share”. I do expect to be paid royalties for each copy sold, and for any cover done and sold as a recording, but otherwise… it gets ridiculaous.
Hmmm… as an artist (graphic, mostly) I am familiar with the concept of ‘borrowed’ and or stolen work, and the frustrations of seeing others making money using my hard work while I get nothing. It’s not a happy thing.
However.
There are some key points to this dilema (sp?). I make the original art (equivelent to writing the tune or song), and present that original work for show and sale. There is only one copy of it unless I make prints.
If I make prints, and they actually sell, I get paid. Either the original, or one of those prints sometimes turn up on the walls of, say, the dentist office. Now… should I be able to charge the dentist for each time someone looks at my artwork, or did I get paid for that artwork when he purchased it?
I got paid for it when he purchased it. He now owns that piece, or the print thereof, and is free to do with it as he sees fit… even to the point of painting over it, or lining his bird cage with it, if that is his choice. The point where it would become a problem is if he chose to charge people admission to come look at that piece of art, and did not pay me royalties for the money he made by direct use of my art. But using BMI’s precident, since he makes money everytime people come through his door, and since they see, or have the opportunity to see my artwork every time they go by it, I should have the right to either be paid a fee or require that he remove my artwork. Of course, he would certainly not be very interested in ever procuring any mre of my work, and therefore my income would actually suffer, rather than be improved.
He has a business that is not art related, so the appearance of my art on his walls does not threaten my making a living. In fact, if people who enjoy the art on his walls see my name on one and seek me out to purchase some for themselves, I might actually be getting “free advertizing”… so… should I be paying him for exposing my work to a wider audience?
So… if, as BMI implies, the mere playing of tunes in a place of business (not directly related to the sale of music in printed or recorded form, or ticketed concert), constitutes making money from the use of copyrighted music ownership, then conversely, the owners of said music might be held responsible for the marketing boost that such exposure provides. Perhaps that is why they are so all fired bent on seeing to it that it doesn’t get played? Rather a foolish view, I think.
I have bought much music because I heard some of it somewhere (usually other than the radio) or because someone recommended the artist (often at a session or in conversation at a place of food and beverage). If I had never heard anyone play a tune I liked, and answered my question of “Where’d you get that?” with the name of some artist, I’d likely never have bought, or grown interested in, a lot of music - traditional or new.
Why do you sell recordings? To have them played. Why do you pay for advertising? So people who don’t already own your music will hear some and want it. So… why not bask in the glow of popularity through free exposure? After all, you already got paid for the contract, the original release and subsequent disc sales.
Greed. It’s a very self defeating practice.
Incidently, this view of ‘make em pay til they bleed’ happened at about the same time that big name companies discovered that they could actually get people to pay them for T-shirts that advertize their products. Think Nike.
They used to just give away T-shirts at store opiennings etc. Now people pay, and quite handsomely, for the “priveledge” of wearing advertizing for already big name merchants. Interesting, eh?
I have to say, this is so much crap. They do -not- have any right to any fees for
the performance of trad tunes, (or even to modern jigs and reels composed by artists
they don’t represent, but best be careful there.) BMI is a private entity, and they
have -only- the power of copyright law, and there -is no copyright- on trad tunes.
This is lawyer-backed extortion at its worst.
The Brits, on the other hand, it sounds like they enshrined their extortion scheme into
its own statute with no exception for public domain works, so Britney Spears and her
manager get a cut every time some plays Bucks of Oranmore on the pipes. Makes tons
of sense, I’m sure.
The Korean music case is also most like a case of flat-out lying extortion. There just isn’t
much Asian music pressed by American labels. Unfortunately, there is some, so even if
all your CDs come from Asian imports, you have to know if any of those CD titles also
have given American distribution rights to BMI, and such.
I’ll never forget later part of last year when a BMI “agent” came into a coffehouse we were playing at regularly and told the manager / owner that he would have to pay an annual fee also.
He basically told the guy to go ---- himself and that there wasn’t anyway he was paying a fee for music that wasn’t under their licensing. That same guy came and sat in on our sessions for 2 months!!! Every single week!
What a jerk! All we played were trad tunes, and we all especially watched it when he showed up for the night. He actually approached us one night and asked us the name of the tune we had just played. It was Wind That Shakes the Barley. He frantically wrote it down in some booklet and left. That was the last time we saw him. I don’t know if he got a butt-chewing for wasting time on a traditional session when he checked out the tune, gave up, or what.
I wonder if you can copyright arrangements of tunes? Surely not?
The owner of the coffeeshop did end up having to get rid of his tuesday open-mic night over it because of people playing well known songs.
It’s all a bunch of crap in my opinion. That would be like me wanting payment for every time someone played their whistle after they bought it from me. What the heck is that? “Hey, hey, hey! Gimme my nickel! You played my whistle again!” Doh! Whatever. Might as well be a lease.
