http://www.twincities.com/ci_13880049?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
THIS ALSO MEANS--- DON'T EVEN PLAY A RECORD
ALBUM/CD THAT YOU OWN, OR PLAY THE RADIO IN
YOUR SHOP WHERE THE PUBLIC ENTERS AND BUYS
PRODUCT. THE EVIL EMPIRE WILL BE THERE TO
RUIN ALL THAT IS TRULY FREE IN THE AMBIANCE
OF YOUR ENVIROMENT. Sigh---(bye by miss
american pie...the day the music died) In
the end, all the poor mom & pop creative
sites, stores, shops will die too. Everyone
will be parinod, not able to trust their
neighbors, and a bigger conspiricy will go
on. THE RIAA ARE TERRORISTS!
=========================
Licensing issues silence musicians
Venues fault copyright bureaucracy
By Andy Marso
St. Cloud Times
Updated: 11/28/2009 09:05:13 PM CST
When health problems kept Mike Thole from
going on the road, the Sunday night
workshops at Bo Diddley's restaurant became
his musical refuge.
Thole, who recently turned 60, suffered
several complications from a childhood bout
with polio, including arthritis in his back
and leg and pain from a recent hip
replacement. By this summer, the pain was so
bad he could no longer tour with his band,
Ring of Kerry.
But the local guitar player still had "The
Acoustic Project," the weekly get-together
at Bo Diddley's that he'd started years
earlier. It was something to look forward
to; a place for him to teach some of St.
Cloud's less-experienced musicians and help
them forge their talents in the fires of
live performance — even if the artists
frequently outnumbered their listeners.
"We were doing something with a high degree
of artistry," Thole said. "We weren't
playing 'Free Bird' for some drunk in the
back of a bar."
So it cut Thole deeply when "The Acoustic
Project" was taken away from him this
summer, too. This time it had nothing to do
with his health. Thole was told that Bo
Diddley's was indefinitely suspending its
live music — a staple at the restaurant
since 1982 — because a national music
licensing company was demanding several
years' worth of licensing fees from the
eatery's owners.
Thole was shocked. He realized he might have
covered a licensed songwriter's work at some
point during the weekly sessions, but it
wasn't as though he were
trying to get rich off someone else's work.
Bo Diddley's never charged any entrance fees
and he wasn't getting paid, aside from the
occasional free sub sandwich.
"This one really sucked, because I couldn't
even play for a fricking sandwich," Thole
said. "I could have done the thing at Bo
Diddley's. That was something that,
physically, I could still do and loved
doing."
Bo Diddley's is not the first local venue to
cut live music under pressure from licensing
companies.
"Fully 50 percent of the clubs that we were
gigging at five years ago have shut down
their live music," said Dan Preston of local
band Preston and Paulzine.
Within the past three years, Bravo Burritos
and Grizzly's Wood-Fired Grill (formerly
Bear Creek) in Waite Park ended all live
performances after receiving letters and
phone calls from licensing companies that
their ownership said became progressively
more aggressive. Brian Lee, co-owner of The
White Horse, said his bar is "seriously
considering" doing the same.
"The licensing companies think they're God,"
Bravo Burritos owner Bill Ellenbecker said.
"They call you up and threaten you with
lawsuits and demands of money."
There are three major live music licensing
companies in the U.S. — Broadcast Music
Inc., the American Society of Composers,
Authors and Publishers, and SESAC (formerly
the Society of European Stage Actors and
Composers). If a performer covers an ASCAP,
BMI or SESAC song in a venue that has not
purchased a license from that company, the
venue owner could be subject to
copyright-infringement penalties.
For venues of up to 100 people, the fees are
generally no more than $650 a year, but
restaurant and bar owners may have to pay
that to each of the three licensing
companies, and that's in addition to the
"mechanical music" fees many already pay for
jukebox or radio play. There also are extra
fees for venues that have karaoke or a dance
floor.
SESAC is by far the smallest of the three
major licensing companies, but its repertory
still includes big-name, often-covered
artists such as Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond.
ASCAP's artist list includes Bon Jovi and
Tom Petty. BMI, the largest of the three
with more than 400,000 artists, licenses the
Beatles.
All three have regional representatives who
monitor local venues to find out where their
company's music is being played without a
license. Then they contact the venue owner,
let them know they may be in violation of
copyright law and encourage them to buy a
live music license.
Barbara Grahn, an attorney who specializes
in copyright and trademark law for the
Minneapolis firm Oppenheimer, Wolff and
Donnelly, said venue owners don't have much
legal recourse against the licensing
companies. The licensing companies' regional
representatives generally come to court with
the names of protected songs they heard
played and the dates they heard them.
Sometimes they make digital recordings.
In a civil court, where the burden of proof
is a preponderance of the evidence, that's
usually enough. Restaurant and bar owners
can't offer evidence to refute the licensing
reps because most don't keep meticulous
records of every song that is played at
their venue in a given year.
Grahn said she'd never actually seen a case
where the courts ruled in favor of a
restaurant or bar and against the licensing
company.
"They virtually always prevail," Grahn said.
"There's no real defense to this. You need a
license to publicly perform their music."
Lee, the co-owner of The White Horse, said
he was surprised when letters from SESAC
started arriving.
"We don't use cover bands," Lee said. "The
guys that come in and play for us aren't
like at a lot of the other bars. We want
original material from our artists."
How does SESAC know that its music has been
played at The White Horse?
"Basically, we don't know," said Dave
Ascher, the SESAC Music Licensing Consultant
who sent the letters. "To make a long story
short, there's no way, logistically, for us
to know whether on a day-to-day basis
they're playing SESAC music."
Ascher said that since SESAC licenses
thousands of popular songs, the company
sometimes starts from the assumption that
any venue with live music needs its license.
He said the first few calls and letters to
those venues were just to inform the owners
about copyright law and let them know how
much it would cost to buy a license that
would protect them from copyright
infringement.
Lee said he has received about five letters
from SESAC in recent months. The most
recent, dated Oct. 19, reads in part:
"Copyright infringement is expensive, and
Federal Law requires that permission be
obtained prior to the public performance of
copyrighted music. We urge you to consult an
attorney regarding this important matter."
Though the letter wasn't an explicit threat
of legal action, Lee read it as such.
"Frankly, we're afraid of getting sued," Lee
said.
Jerry Bailey, director of media relations at
BMI, said his company didn't always pursue
legal action against smaller venues, because
it isn't always worth the money or the
effort of sending a representative to the
venue and gathering evidence. But sometimes
it was necessary.
"We have a responsibility to the 400,000
songwriters and publishers affiliated with
us to collect all the income they're
entitled to under the law," Bailey said. "We
take that very seriously."
But Preston said the licensing companies
were benefiting only a small number of
well-known artists. Because there's no
practical way to track how many times an
artist's songs are covered live, the live
music royalties that ASCAP, SESAC and BMI
dole out are based mostly on radio and TV
play.
"They're protecting Bruce Springsteen, who
doesn't really need a whole lot more money,"
Preston said.
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