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ASCAP went after the Girl Scouts for round-the-fire
sing-a-longs, so I wouldn't doubt too many negative reports about their ability
to suck the life and fun out of things.
I can only speak for my own establishment, but we were providing the
"living jukeboxes" more-or-less as a public service -- I seriously doubt any
regular (i.e., small) coffeehouse can recover their ASCAP/BMI fees. We did it
because we were kind of wide-eyed about the sort of place we wanted to be,
that offered local folks a place to do their thing for other folks that wanted
to hear it. If we had done the "no covers" thing, we would have had to book
five performers a night to get three sets, probably. (This was in small-town
Minnesota.) Ultimately, our performers were just regular people with regular
day-jobs who played instruments when they got home from work, music they
happened to like. The ASCAP heavy who visited -- I don't know. (Apparently, I
can still get upset about it.) As far as I can tell, nobody's interests are
served by this system -- it's like an evil plot to remove all delight from
music.
On 7/13/07, Jim
Bailey <jbailey@wsimail.com> wrote:
Yeah. I'm
sure his job was at least restructured because really...how
many venues
are going to feature "public domain" music and keep their
clientele
around that are used to hearing a living jukebox? Yes it was
the venues deal but wouldn't it have been nice for the performer to
know
that at anytime the fun police might bust in and shut down his
gig?
Lol.
It kinda boggles me that given the laws that we are
discussing
here...wouldn't it be in the BMI and ASCAPS best interest to
REQUIRE
their licensed venues to put big signs on the walls saying "BMI
licensed
venue" or something?
-----Original Message-----
From:
Bill Fox [mailto:billyfox@soundscapes.us]
Sent:
Friday, July 13, 2007 1:34 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: Composers should also get paid
Jim Bailey
wrote:
> Well under the example given below the piano guy lost HIS JOB
because
> he wasn't informed. Not trying to argumentative
or anything. Just
> trying to get facts straight.
BMI
or ASCAP weren't the ones who fired the piano player. The venue
did
because the owner was too cheap to pay the license fee or the fee
plus
performer pay weren't offset by increased profits.
Cheers,
Bill
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