Re: [ARSCLIST] ASCAP follows RIAA down the road guaranteed not to make friends

["Steven Smith, King of the House, Inc." <kingofthehouse@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,

Interesting. Also, regarding demute's comments. I agree that bars should be
paying the licensing fees. My main complaint was the double dipping. When I
had the radio station, we were getting calls from little souvenir or gift
shops and that kind of place. They had our station on and the ASCAP enforcer
went through. The fees they wanted were not large, but as a radio station
between ASCAP and the larger BMI I was paying almost $1200.00 PER MONTH in
licensing fees. That by the way, was the early 1980's so that was
substantial change back then. SESAC which had little product except for
gospel music was getting far less, more like $25.00 per month. So, when they
charged us what they did and then wanted another $200.00 per year from the
little shop, that was pretty aggravating.

Frankly, I always found the larger BMI easier to deal with than ASCAP.
Demute: I saw that your web radio is old music so perhaps you do not have
any BMI material. I am no expert on the history but, as I recall, BMI came
along later and was a response by broadcasters who thought they were getting
ripped off by ASCAP. So maybe your old music is all ASCAP. I can tell you
that, when I had the commercial station up until ten years ago, most of the
newer music is BMI. Every year or two we did a log, for one of the licensing
firms or the other, and had to write down each song and who licensed it -- 
that was a part of our license agreement and in theory writers are paid
based on the radio play. We would do one for ASCAP and another for BMI. For
all the years we did this, we found that about 55% or more of the music was
BMI with ASCAP at about 40% and SESAC way down the line at maybe 5% and that
is probably high.They did pickup some popular country artists in the 1980's
which made them go up a bit. I think it is safe to say that any
establishment, such as bars or shops, trying to comply with the rules MUST
have both the ASCAP and the BMI license. They could probably pass on SESAC,
as much of their inventory is gospel. Although the largest percentage of
popular music of recent decades is with BMI, they seem less aggressive in
their enforcement,around here at least.
Steve

--- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Bondurant" <John_Bondurant@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 8:39 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] ASCAP follows RIAA down the road guaranteed not to
make friends


(Full Disclosure: I worked for BMI over 8 years until figuring out that I
liked music too much to stay there)

Sadly, this really isn't anything new. And it did backfire for the
performing rights organizations (PROs) about 10 years ago. From what I
understand, BMI filed an infringement lawsuit on a restaurant owner in
Wisconsin who happened to be the brother-in-law of Sen. James Sensenbrenner.
This got the restaurant lobby and Congress all riled up, plus the whole Sony
Bono Act was going down. The end result was that the National Restaurant
Association (the other NRA) got some performing rights exemptions put into
the Bono Act, mainly dealing with off-air radio play in businesses or the
so-called "double dipping."

Toward the end of my tenure at BMI, I do remember them negotiating a new
licenses with the NRA and other restaurant and hotel/hospitality industry
groups. This seemed like the route that BMI figured was more agreeable and
effective. Whether or not they still due that is unknown to me. Also, I
recall that the real bugaboo license was with the music-on-hold/background
music services, whose rates were extremely outdated (as of about 2003).
Hmmmmm.


John H. Bondurant
Sound Preservation Archivist
Hutchins Library, Special Collections & Archives
Berea College
CPO LIB
Berea, KY 40404

john_bondurant@xxxxxxxxx
Office: 859-985-3389
Fax: 859-985-3912

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Smith, King of the House, Inc.
[mailto:kingofthehouse@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wed 8/1/2007 6:15 PM
Subject: Re: ASCAP follows RIAA down the road guaranteed not to make friends

You know, this is nothing new, dumb as it might be.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 2:29 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] ASCAP follows RIAA down the road guaranteed not to make
friends


> http://tinyurl.com/3bzguo
>
> I'd love to know what genius lawyer came up with this tactic, especially
since it's backfired in
> spades against the RIAA. Keep it up and even grandmas will feel it's OK to
stiff "those jerks" and
> steal music. How deep do these fools think a bar-owners pockets are? If
they get back enough money
> to feed one musician for one month, I'll be surprised.
>
> One man's opinion, etc.
>
> -- Tom Fine