Yay! Many kudos to the coffeehouse owner! Tell him he’s a hero on the board. 
(At least he’s a hero from my point of view 
)
–Chris
This is why I try to…
First, a clarification to a previous post: The money collected by ASCAP/BMI/whoever for public performances of copyrighted music goes to the song writer, not the original performer. Performers get paid from CD sales and tours, not performances by other artists. So, Spears, et al aren’t getting your money unless they actually wrote the song you are performing.
Song writers roylaties are not very high. I’m not sure of the exact numbers but a song writer either has to write many, many songs or get a mega-hit to make any money. A performer, on the other hand, can at least make a living if he’s good, works hard and plays music that’s popular in his locale.
BMI and ASCAP may be increasing their efforts to collect roylaties because of all the lost revenue from file sharing. CD sales are falling as people get music free over the net. I suspect BMI, etc. are engaged in a “copyright awareness program.” If their tactics really are as goonish as described above, this may backfire on them.
Yup, that free advertising is dangerous stuff… and think about it… what if the guy playing it did a terrible job?.. or worse… better? 
It’s pretty darned petty, and … well… there is a time when the term is quite suitable - stupid.
You’re right. But it’s still unlikely that the writers of unpopular songs will get anything. I betcha that BMI guy who came to my son’s restaurant couldn’t even pronounce the names of the songs being played, much less find out who wrote them.
If a venue pays some kind of annual fee, how on earth do the people collecting that fee know how to distribute the money? Do they have someone at every performance, noting down the names of all the songs being done? Or, do they require that the owner of the place report that to them?
I don’t have the slightest objection to paying royalties to the actual song writer for every song that I make money playing. However, it’s obvious that this is not what’s happening. Surely some kind of reform is needed. Maybe some clever person should figure out what really needs to be done, then the rest of us could start bugging our government folks to get it to happen.
I do think it’s a gyp that background music should require payment. I doubt that anyone would put background music over food quality in a restaurant, and I sure don’t pick my doctor or dentist based on whether he or she even has music in the waiting room. So, it seems ridiculous to argue that these folks are making even a penny by playing music for their customers.
JASRAC here,the same annoying ridiculous thing.
I have never been interested in the music which can be shared by files(frankly thats not even ‘music’ to me, that’s just so called ‘information’).
So even if that sort of music turned out to be unprofitable,I wouldnt mind.I wouldnt mind something really predictable.
Here’s a long and well-informed discussion on this subject from the Session site:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/2595/comments
Excellent! I am printing out a copy of that letter (From the assistent General Counsel to the Congressman) to keep with me in my instrument bag for the inevitiable challenge.
Part of the absurdity of and irony of this whole issue is that in seeking to protect the copyright and ownership of intellectual property, we ignore, deny or effectively prohibit the fact that such stuff influences all who see, hear or read it.
If you grew up listening to the radio in the 50’s, you are likely to have experience, auditorily (is that really a word?) a lot of music that leads you to independently think of certain patterns and little snips and clips (is using that ancient expression now copyright infringement?) of melodies and patterns in your own creative works.
The same would be true for any era, and any locale, and any social tradition that puts a particular body of work within your experience are.
So… how do we … and more importantly, should we really be turning the entire historical tendency of humans to hum, sing, whistle, tap, manipulate sound into something of marketable ownership?
A book is published and presented in concrete form. A song can be done so too. If I quote a poem from a book I’ve read to a friend, am I stealing the author’s work, or recommending that my friend experience the author themselves?
Now, if I am being paid to recite those lines, then they’d either better be my own, or I better have permission to use them. But if I’m not being paid? Who should have the right to decide what I can think and share with someone?
We’re not talking about a pack of trading cards here. We’re talking about experience. How do we, and again should we, be ascertaining, monitoring and charging for the influence thought and creativity have on individuals?
This is so much more than a question of who owns what. We are arguable made up of the things we see, hear, read, etc. When does my hearing a tune quit being my own experience and become someone else’s “product”? I know that there are some clear examples, such as if and when I copy that tune or the majorly recognizable portions of it and use it as my own. Plagiarism is understandably illegal. But if I whistle a tune I like while I walk down the street, ride a bus, sit on a park bench, or sit with friends around a pub table, am I sharing an experience or stealing someone’s property? Again, I think that as long as I acknowledge the original artist, or the book or recording I got it from, which is the frequent outcome of “Great tune! What was that?”, I am not doing damage to the copyright owner, but a service.
In that view, the logical reaction might be to turn the legal tables and sue for undue influence, interference, ‘thought pollution’, and other forms of outrage at having my experience of life overly changed by hearing a disgusting song over and over and over again.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm…
Sheesh! Given the thousands of trad and pseudo-trad tunes out there, plus the multiple names that many of the tunes, do you really think these goons would know a copywrighted tune if they heard it? Lets face it, a lot of trad tunes sound awfully similar.
I’m not advocating taking someone elses work and performing it for profit without paying the fees, but for a bunch of people sitting around having a good time playing for their own enjoyment to have to put up with this is ludicrous (I realize that some of these sessions take place in commercial places like pubs, and the owners are in some way profiting from this music, but c’mon…).
A suggestion-- teach the freakin’ tune, and make up a name for it! Someone posted an online Celtic Tune Title Generator a while back. Let THEM try to figger it out!
Personally, if Iwrote a tune, I’d be honored and pleased if folks liked it enough to play it for their own enjoyment.