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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: DTS Disks & Movietunes
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-01-2007 05:02 AM
Years ago we got the yearly blanket license from ASCAP and BMI. Thing is, it's got lots of limititations and they keep nickle and dimeing you to death. But really, it's a scam from the getgo and evil at its very core.
We, the theatre buys the license for music exhibition in the theatre, then we do a show and the artists comes to perform and ASCAP and BMI demand that the ARTISTS as well pay a fee for the same songs that we've already paid clearance for. Both these companies -- spawn from hell that they are -- demand a fee two, sometimes three times for the same performance, the same song in the same space. They'll try to intimidate as many people involved to get a "license fee" out of them. They even wanted every member of this big band to pay a fee for playing some old 40's tune...EVERY MEMBER OF THE BAND....these old dudes trying to eek out a living on big band concerts and there's an ASCAP thug standing off stage writing down names while the musicians in thread-worn tuxes are trying to do a show. POND SCUM. Screw them.
They also make the radio stations pay a license fee, but then send their dogs into a pizza parlor to demand the owner pay a license fee for playing the same music that the radio station already paid to exhibit. Then on top of it all, the poor artist rarely gets to see any substantial amount of the money these pig collect because both those organized crime outfits cook their books 100 ways to Sunday. Just ask any starving artist. It's extortion; they are no better than mafia thugs. In fact, you'd be better off ignoring them completely and just paying your own local mafia thugs for protection so that when the ASCAP and BMI checkers come by to listen-check your intermission music (they're supposed to recognize every one of the billion songs in their library and check them off with a clicker, or so I'm told) and then tell you how you've got to pay. I say, just have your own mafia thugs break their legs when they show up and be done with it.
Or you can just tell each one that you only play the other's play list. You tell ASCAP that your policy is that you do not play any ASCAP titles; you only play BMI titles. And you tell BMI the reverse. Then you let them bid against each other for your business.
But seriously, pay the smallest fee or "package" that you can get -- they go by cap numbers. Pick your smallest room and give them that number. Once you've got the license, it covers many ills. And forget about SESAC; don't pay any attention to them as they will scream louder than the other two combined about how you HAVE to pay them. The music they license is all a pile of bad gospel diddies -- you just tell them you don't play their gag-inducing crap because it makes your audience puke on the rugs, so you have a strick policy -- no SESAC in your theatre....ever.
ASCAP, BMI "Licensing" It's extortion, plain and simple.
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Mark J. Marshall
Film God
Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 08-01-2007 02:39 PM
This is timely.
quote:
Music suit creates discord
By Kristi Heim
Seattle Times business reporter
A Seattle restaurant is among more than two dozen venues swept up in a music-licensing crackdown for allegedly failing to pay royalties to play copyrighted music in public.
Without a special license, owners of bars, clubs and restaurants could be sued for playing any one of 8 million recorded songs, even from their own CDs.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) says that equates to performing copyrighted music without permission, and the group is going after local businesses that haven't paid them for the privilege.
On Monday, ASCAP said it had filed 26 separate infringement actions against nightclubs, bars and restaurants in 17 states. Among them is a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle against the Ibiza Dinner Club downtown.
The group sued to spread the word that performing such music without permission is a federal offense, said Vincent Candilora, ASCAP senior vice president for licensing.
On Tuesday, Ibiza owner Abi Eshagi said he had not received information from ASCAP regarding a lawsuit and insisted his restaurant did not violate any rules.
ASCAP says that besides broadcasting songs over the radio, television and Internet, the definition of performing copyrighted music includes playing it "any place where people gather," with the exception of small private groups.
For restaurants, that includes playing songs as background music, by a DJ and even music-on-hold over phone lines, according to ASCAP's Web site.
"As long as it's [played] outside a direct circle of friends and family, it is considered a public performance," Candilora said. "A musical composition is somebody's property."
ASCAP alleged that a DJ at Ibiza played three copyrighted pop songs without paying a licensing fee, which Candilora calculated would have cost Ibiza $979 a year, considering the size of the venue and the type of performance.
"I think it's absurd," said Eshagi. "Not only DJs have bought that music, I also subscribe to an online music-use service, and I'm also paying the cable company for the same thing. I don't know how many times we have to pay for a song."
ASCAP, whose 300,000 members include such artists as Coldplay, Dr. Dre, Avril Lavigne and Elvis Costello, has investigators working in cities across the country to identify new restaurants, bars, theme parks or other establishments where music is used, Candilora said.
They visit venues to find out what songs are being played, then check to see whether the owner paid for a license.
While many business owners may not be aware of it, such legal action is becoming common, said Eric Steuer, creative director of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that has been critical of current copyright laws and supports alternative licensing plans.
The hardball legal tactics resemble when the recording industry sues students, Steuer said.
"What I don't think many venue owners — nor probably the majority of DJs — understand is that almost all of the music that they play requires a performance license," Steuer said. "I think that there's a misunderstanding that because music is 'indie' or not widely known, that it's OK to play."
Many DJs get music free from record labels so they can play and promote it, Steuer added. "I'm sure that they'd never imagine that they're committing a federal offense by playing this stuff without paying for the right to play it."
ASCAP is seeking up to $30,000 in damages per infringement from Ibiza. Candilora said the group has tried for two years to get the restaurant to comply with its requests.
Eshagi said he plans to fight. He said he was contacted by an ASCAP representative by phone and had asked the group to send a list of songs they claimed were infringed.
Eshagi said he told ASCAP he pays for two music-subscription services.
"I don't really know what is the basis for [a lawsuit]," he said.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-01-2007 03:30 PM
quote: Dennis Benjamin
Good luck on your copyright infringment endeavors.
The whole issue of "background music" being used as grounds for copyright infringement is stupid. When considering whether a venue needs to be licensed for the music it plays, a very simple test should be applied:
Q. Are people coming to the venue specifically for the purpose of hearing that music?
If the answer is yes, then the venue should have to buy a license. Clearly, nobody goes to a theatre for the purpose of listening to the preshow music, so a theatre should not have to pay for a BMI/ASCAP license. On the other hand, people DO go to a nightclub to hear or dance to that music, so that venue would need to have the license.
Under the same test, if a retail store has a radio playing in the background, there should be no license requirement. Nobody goes to a store to hear what music is on. It's just there to kill the silence.
I'm all for musicians getting paid when their work is exhibited, but when that work is used as background music in a business, it should be considered "promotional" and the musician should be glad he's getting played.
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Marc Hansen
Film Handler
Posts: 93
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: Dec 2000
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posted 08-02-2007 09:52 AM
From XM's website-
No Hassles: All ASCAP, BMI and other commercial music license fees paid for most establishments unless you operate an establishment that charges an admission or membership fee (e.g. a theme park, skating rink, dance club, health club, etc.) or uses music sources other than XM (e.g. CDs, DJs, live music, terrestrial radio, etc.).
Looks like it doesn't.
Marc
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 08-02-2007 11:21 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
The whole issue of "background music" being used as grounds for copyright infringement is stupid. When considering whether a venue needs to be licensed for the music it plays, a very simple test should be applied:
Q. Are people coming to the venue specifically for the purpose of hearing that music?
If the answer is yes, then the venue should have to buy a license. Clearly, nobody goes to a theatre for the purpose of listening to the preshow music, so a theatre should not have to pay for a BMI/ASCAP license.
It's not the musicians, Mike, it's the composers. The musicians and manufacturers mainly get their money from sales, not performances. The composers get paid, based on formulas that estimate how many times people have heard their works.
The argument against your position about background music is that it IS being used to generate an ambiance that makes the business pleasing to the customer. As such, the music, and by extension, the composer has provided a service to the business owner. By that argument, the service should be paid for. Without music in an auditorium, restaurant or other enclosed space, people become very self-conscious about their conversation. Some may not return because the experience was uncomfortable, whether they know why or not. If there's no worth to playing background music, it shouldn't bother the business whether it's there or not. However, if there IS a point, then there will always be an argument as to whether its worth should include returns for the person who invented the content. By that measure, there is a reason for licensing, whether or not the actual amount is considered fair.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-03-2007 04:39 AM
quote: Louis Bornwasser
There is no fee for a theatre LOBBY; therefore it would be OK to use XM in the lobby. The auditoriums, however, might be another matter. Louis
Like with all copyright infringement claims, the legal issues need to be decided in court. The unfortunate history is, if a huge entity with lots of money, like a record conglomerate or a movie studio tells some small pizza parlor owner that he's infringing, even if he believes he's not, it is very unlikely that he is going to take them and their battalion of lawyers in what will most certainly be a very expensive court challenge for anyone brave enough to fight the claim.
Also, history has shown that the copyright cases tend to go in favor of the conglomerates. Hence many of these issues, like the one that supposedly caused ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE to be ripped out of Public Domain and back into copyright status, never get resolved and the guys without the big bucks just cave in and say it's not worth the challenge. For example, the Chaplin estate continues to threaten anyone who wants to play the films from the early Chaplin library which clearly have Public Domain status, with legal threats of copyright infringement. Seems they have made some recuts and added music to these titles and thus claim they are new, copyrighted works, even though the exhibitor wants to play the original, sans changes and pre any of the estates manipulation.
Many copyright experts will say no, the estate will loose, but that will never come to be legally decided because anyone interested in either distributing or exhibiting these films would never be able to recoup from what little potential profit there may be in such exhibition or distribution; it simply would not be profitable for them to mount a legal challenge, even if they won. It's just outright intimidation.
And we know what side the FBI is on. There is no big red FBI sticker on the cans of a Public Domain print or on the case of a PD DVD title that says, The FBI investigates any fraudulent claims of copyright ownership or infringement or the use of intimidation whose purpose is to prevent the public from access to this Public Domain work."
Wouldn't THAT be a 180 degree turn around.....the FBI actually looking out for the Public's interest for a change in Public Domain material, instead of being the MPAA and ASCAP/BMI et al's goon squad.
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