The Steel Guitar Forum

I know more or less how author/publisher royalties are collected on CD sales but how are they collected and paid for from songs played by musicians on club gigs and other live performances?
Also:Most guitar tab music for downloading from the internet carries a notice forbidding its use in live performances,for commercial purposes.How is this restriction overcome legally so that professional guitarists can use these arrangements on their gigs?
Thanks,
Malcolm

Generally speaking, the club pays an annual fee to ASCAP and to BMI to cover all their published music played at that club by anybody. The individual musician does not have to pay this personally.

Does this mean to say that every tune I play while on a stage gig should have a royalty fee attached to it?

If so, I should be about three million dollars in debt by now.

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(I am not right all of the time but I sure like to think I am!)

no..clubs pay a BLANKET fee which is paid to the MOTHER association....it covers everything....

how they divy it up is there problem...

Everey memebr probably gets a royality check for $ .48 cents /year...

Jim and Tony are both right and don't forget SESAC (gospel) These two main ones BMI and ASCAP visit clubs all over the country and collect license fees. They will bring tape recorders and tape you playing their music then approach the club owner and ask to see his license (which he has to renew every year) I have played in clubs where the owners gave me forewarning that they did not have an ASCAP license (BMI is the largest) so don't play any music. This was a pain the first couple of times since, how do we know? Actually its listed on all records, tapes etc you just have to pay attention to who lists with who. For example Jim Croce's stuff is ASCAP. Well enough wandering for now. Hope this helps some.


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EMCI D10 8/4 and Nashville 400

<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Chuck Hall on 02 October 2005 at 07:35 AM.]</p></FONT>

Les

"I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken" lol<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Chuck Hall on 02 October 2005 at 07:33 AM.]</p></FONT>

Must be a pain in the tush if a customer calls out from the audience:
"Hey,play "Steel Guitar Rag",buddy".
and the club owner has previously told you not to play BMI stuff and that number happens to belong to BMI.Kinda puts the steel player in the middle between the audience and club owner.
Malcolm<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Malcolm Leonard on 02 October 2005 at 08:05 AM.]</p></FONT>

My duo used to play a small club here that required only original music- as they wouldn't pay the licencing fees. Pretended that it was to support "local songwriters". They've closed down..
As far as playing from tab arrangements goes, I expect it would be assumed that you were just covering the original recording which would be covered in the blanket license deal. Kind of like playing the Van Halen version of "Pretty Woman" would actually accrue royalties to Roy Orbison's estate. If you want to hurt your head look into how they make the calculations to divide up the payments. Ouch.

Then, do the Steel Guitar Shows or Steel Jams around the country, and the International Steel Guitar Convention, pay Royalties through BMI, ASCAP and SESAC for all the music played there by all the Steel players and vocalists? Would this be paid like a Club would pay? Blanket type charge?
Just wondering.

The ASCAP rep showed up at a Music Barn that I used to play at. He seen an ad in the paper and knew they weren't listed. He was very nice and said the fee was normally based on the number of seats in the house. Well, the music barn was all bleachers!!! How he determined the fee, I am not sure. But I think it was set at $150.00 per year. They were only open on Saturday nights, so it seems like that should have played into the pricing. He gave them the ASCAP sticker to display and that was the end of it. I assume that they got a bill every year after that to renew.

I would suspect there are more "illegal" venues than there are places that are legally licensed by BMI, etc.