- sorry double post, Nigel please delete

Excess in anything is created by the individual's inability to handle whatever ...
Drinking alcohol in itself is not illegal, and within reasonable limits - not hurting anyone in the process - is part of social activity ... I don't think I am contributing to the problem of over-consumption by gigging in a place that is serving alcohol ... if I'm not there, someone else will be ... if that makes me un-ethical, then I guess I am guilty ...

What does a musician have to do with paying Ascap or BMI? To my knowledge, we don't. Clubs do. If clubs play cover songs, they are required to have a license and it's been that way for decades. The club is responsible, not musicians, right?

Now, if the club fired bands who play cover songs because the venue was too cheap to pay the license, who's the bad guy? I dunno, seems to me that a club that genuinely cannot afford a license is either lying, too cheap to fork it over, or about to go under anyway. I don't think licenses cost that much, in the big scheme of things, which is a club's annual budget. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The copyright laws seem pretty straight-forward... if you (venue) profit from the intellectual property rights of others (songwriters), you must buy a license so that royalties can be paid to those who created the intellectual property. As for Ascap and BMI and the way they operate (which some say is inconsistent but I have no way of knowing that), I don't have an allegiance to them, only to the principle.

disclaimer: I am by no means and expert on the subject.

What I do know is that public places (bars, restaurants, shopping malls, etc.) are expected to pay royalties for commercial music that is played for public ears. The way I understand it is that these fees will cover commercial music being played live by a musician/band and also pre-recorded. I also understand that if a venue does not pay royalty fees, then it is the responsibility of the musician/band to pay those fees when playing commercial music. So it is not necessarily the club owners responsibility. The owner could choose to either not have music, or hire musicians who only play original material, or hire a musician who plays commercial material and pays the proper royalties. Based on your last paragraph where you said "if you (venue) profit from the intellectual property rights of others (songwriters), you must buy a license so that royalties can be paid to those who created the intellectual property I would think you agree that if playing somewhere that does not pay royalties, then it is up to the musician to do so, right?

No, my understanding of this has been that it is not the musician's responsibility to do this, it is a venue's responsibility. What's a musician going to do, say, "Show me your license?" Also, all musicians having to buy licenses seems ridiculously onerous. I'll try to check elsewhere on this.

The only thing I can think of is that it could be that you are correct BUT that ASCAP/BMI, etc. do not enforce it against musicians, only against venues. Whatever it is, I don't see how they could enforce it against all musicians even if they wanted to. Well, I guess they could, but gee there are a bazillion bands playing covers. Far more than those who play only originals. That would be tough to do.

Musicians are responsible for licenses when they record a tune that was written/published by someone else.

Venues pay for the fees when they hire people to play live music, or for that matter, recorded music...

Bill, you are right about the principal of songwriters and performers justifiably getting royalties. The problem is in execution. Reps are gangsters who use every type of intimidation technique possible.

You can negotiate a fee based on number of seats, size of group(S), number of nights, etc. No one can tell you how
funds are divided so that Bill Pittman, for example, gets his fair share.

I used to play a hotel where the ASCAP folks stayed. They were invariably rough, large and pushy. They surveyed all the entertainment guides and newspapers , on line entertainment guides, etc. Then, for those who were not licensed, they started a process of collections.

REALLY Pains in the A**!


Russ

PS, as far as fees go, a place I played 6 months a year (I was the only entertainment) paid $5100.00 in annual assessments, which also included some piped in, recorded music.