The Steel Guitar Forum

Had a nice little house gig lined up at a bar. Just a couple of nights a week in a small place that wanted to replace a DJ with a 5 piece and appeal to the country dance crowd. The owner had the misfortune to ask a couple of questions of his peers on-line to help him set up a sound system and dance floor. He's now getting legal letters and phone calls from ASCAP demanding he send them a couple of grand a year for a licence to preform cover tunes.

ASCAP demanded he either prove that all songs performed in his bar were originals where the performers own the rights or buy a licence based on the total amount he'd spend per year to hire a cover band. They also want back fees to cover the DJ that he was trying to replace. Needless to say, he said he had enough problems in his business to add in any more, so he's dropping the whole thing and firing the DJ to boot. He said a Juke Box would at least be easy to license.

... and we wonder why we don't get live gigs anymore ...

It sounds like you are damned if you do and dammed if you don't.. I wonder how ASCAP keeps track of all the music that's playing in shopping malls,and various other places..There would be thousands of places playing all kinds of different music all over North America every day and night...Would all of these places have to pay a flat rate on a yearly basis?...Regards,,Carson

Ascap has been around for nearly 100 years. Every bar that has live music has had to pay Ascap, it is a part of doing business. If the bar owner makes a business decision that they will not recoop the $1000 a year (or whatever it is) by selling more drinks and/or a cover charge, then that is a business decision every bar makes and has made since the 20's.

By the way, the fee is about $2 a day. If you think a band will make you more than an extra $2 a day in drinks with a band, pay the fee. If you don't think you will sell an additional $2 a day, don't have a band.

Don't blame Ascap, which has provided livings for thousands of composers and their families. Blame the bar owner who seems to be a bit short sighted.

A lot of outfits are in the business of intercepting the live music consumer's entertainment dollar BEFORE it reaches the working musician....

All levels of government,MADD,the American Lung Association,and innumerable other groups and persons.ASCAP is the only one of those entities that has anything at all to do with music.

ASCAP didn't kill your gig-a clubowner who wants something for nothing did. You might look at the situation differently if you'd written some of those tunes.

Carson Leighton wrote: I wonder how ASCAP keeps track of all the music that's playing in shopping malls,and various other places.

You can read all about ASCAP payment systems and weighting formulas etc etc here:
http://www.ascap.com/resource/info.aspx

If it's not ASCAP it will be BMI or both. We have had the same problem with BMI at a animal lodge and paid the fee 1800.00 per year in order to have music once or twice a month. Then they have the guts to also charge you 2:00 per person extra based on your occupancy load if you allow dancing??? That is a total screw job. The dancers are hearing the same band, same song, same show as the non-dancers. How do they get by charging extra. Paying a fair license amount for the music is one thing but all of the added charges like for allowing dancing is extorcion in my opinion.

if a band is playing all originals, why would the barkeep be responsible for proving it?

it seems if ascap is the one extorting the money they should be the party responsible for proving that covers were played!

The first time i realized what ascap was it made me MAD AS HELL!!!!! I think a bar owner should be able to hire a band,or have a jukebox without having to worry about paying some little rinky dink chickens*** politician that thanks you should pay a fee for playing live music in a bar.I wish i knew who invented ascap because i would rub his a** raw with a corn cob for thirty minutes,and the pour turpintine in it!!! Sorry BoB this subject really Pi**es me off!

Who gave ASCAP and BMI their authority? Are they a quasi-governmental agency? What happens if a bar-owner thumbs his nose at them and doesn't ante up?

An extra charge for dancing? Do you start charging the dancers a higher cover charge?

I'm not taking sides in this. I just wonder who gives them the authority to do what they do.

Who gave ASCAP and BMI their authority

Ascap was created by composers for composers. BMI was created by radio broadcasters. It has nothing to do with politics. These are composer organizations designed to pay composers the royalties they deserve.

In the 40's when BMI started, the radio companies were tired of paying royalties to ASCAP so they started their own organization and refused to allow ASCAP songs from being played on the radio.

The reason we have the tune Take the A Train was because Billy Strayhorn and Mercer Ellington had to rewrite the entire Ellington book so they could play on the radio and publish them with BMI.

This is not a government run thing. This is private enterprise. and it insures that royalties are paid.

Lee, its a membership organization. For example, I write a song and then I get it copyrighted. After that, I register the song with ASCAP and they pay me a royalty when someone uses my copyrighted work. So if someone uses my work in a public performance, and I created it, then I get compensated from the monies that I have contracted with ASCAP to collect on my behalf. If a bar snubs them, then they can bring a civil action against the operator for failing to pay for the use of the copyrighted material. It really is designed to make sure the owner of the music gets paid for his labor.

How much money does the writer get from ASCAP?

I'd like to hear from somebody who gets paid by them how the percentages work out?

It used to be the MUSICIANS UNION that had every body paying in dues!

A 'union card' to work, what a load of bolloux

What happens if a bar-owner thumbs his nose at them and doesn't ante up?

They get sued for stealing copy protected work.

Lee, I asked BMI the same questions.They stated since they represent the writers and the songs are copyrighted they were basically collecting royalties. They threatend to take us to court if we did not ante up. I said what if the band plays all originals? They said someone would request one of the songs in their catalog and if the band played it we were in violation. The venue is in violation NOT the band playing the copyrighted music. It is BULL S**T in my opinion. In our area they had a clipping service that went through the local papers and clipped adds for live music and sent them to BMI, that's how they found out who to target.

How does ASCAP know that a band is playing your song?

As to who controls Ascap--Bmi. we that were playing clubs(honky tonks) in the 50s - 70s. were quietly whispered one word. Never proven to me, Just everbodies oppinion. m o f f i a , I personally don,t know nor Care to Know. Andy H.
PS Don't think they can hit a private party in someones home. Kinda wonder if they're lookin at our Steel Jams.

The basic authority comes from the US constitution's establishment of intellectual property. Which makes it so that inventors get paid for there inventions, composers get paid for there compositions and so on. Its one of the main reasons that the US became a center for innovation in its early days.

That said the ASCAP guys can be real dicks.

I've lost count of the times over the years that I've seen a small sign on the wall of a bandstand reading "This band performs no ASCAP material" or something like that. I know of a couple of places recently in my area where they were contacted by ASCAP wanting them to pay a fee and they just ignored them and nothing ever happened.....JH in Va.

Well,as long as we keep beating up on a non-governmental outfit that at least TRIES to get royalties for musician-songwriters,all the antismoking/DUI nannies over in government can rest assured our customers will continue to pay them and not us.

Here's how one club owner dealt with it...

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... highlight=

I've never heard of this kind of thing before..Of course I've been out of circulation as far the night club scene goes, for a quite a long time..We used to just pay our union dues and keep on pickin'..If we didn't have the money for dues,,we still kept on pickin,' and paid them when we could...Never had any problems. Maybe that ruling isn't applied up here in Canada.....Regards,,,,Carson

Bill McCloskey wrote:

What happens if a bar-owner thumbs his nose at them and doesn't ante up?

They get sued for stealing copy protected work.

I know a club owner who never paid in, and was threatened every 3-6 months.
He said, Go ahead and sue me then,
He never heard a word after about the first 3 years,except for an occasional call every 2 years or so, he continued for 15 more years.
His opinion was; F$$$ em!

Larry Bressington wrote:How much money does the writer get from ASCAP?

You can read about ASCAP here:
http://www.ascap.com/

Paul Crawford wrote:Had a nice little house gig lined up at a bar. Just a couple of nights a week in a small place that wanted to replace a DJ with a 5 piece and appeal to the country dance crowd. The owner had the misfortune to ask a couple of questions of his peers on-line to help him set up a sound system and dance floor. He's now getting legal letters and phone calls from ASCAP demanding he send them a couple of grand a year for a licence to preform cover tunes.

ASCAP demanded he either prove that all songs performed in his bar were originals where the performers own the rights or buy a licence based on the total amount he'd spend per year to hire a cover band. They also want back fees to cover the DJ that he was trying to replace. Needless to say, he said he had enough problems in his business to add in any more, so he's dropping the whole thing and firing the DJ to boot. He said a Juke Box would at least be easy to license.

... and we wonder why we don't get live gigs anymore ...

We don't have gigs anymore because of club owners like him. They always want music or entertainment to help the business, yet they are unwilling to pay for it.