[olePigeon]

Saw this on another forum.

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ASCAP Launches Infringement Actions against Establishments Performing Copyrighted Music without Permission
Monday January 24, 1:27 pm ET

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 24, 2005--Today, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers filed 24 separate copyright infringement actions against nightclubs, bars, and restaurants in 15 states and the District of Columbia. These establishments (listed below) have publicly performed the copyrighted musical works of ASCAP's songwriter, composer and music publisher members without receiving their permission to do so, resulting in lost income.

"Informing business owners of their obligations under Federal Copyright Law is one of ASCAP's key roles," said Vincent Candilora, Senior Vice President of Licensing at ASCAP. "We provide any business using music the opportunity to receive permission through acceptance of a license covering the use of over 8 million copyrighted songs and compositions, and we make every effort to educate business owners concerning their music licensing responsibilities. If our good efforts are ignored, then our only recourse is legal action."

During 2004, ASCAP achieved a 100% success rate with its copyright infringement litigation, with all concluded cases resulting in either a cash settlement or a judgment in favor of ASCAP members. This is significant as ASCAP represents over 200,000 member owners who, for the most part, are songwriters and composers who rely heavily on their ASCAP royalties, as well as ASCAP's enforcement efforts on their behalf. Over 86 cents of every dollar collected is distributed to its members, the music creators.

According to Vince Abbatiello, ASCAP Vice President of Sales and Director of General Licensing, "When business owners ignore their obligations and violate Federal Copyright Law, they are actually stealing from the songwriters and composers who created the music compositions that those businesses are using. Individual songwriters and composers are the ultimate small business people, working on their own with limited opportunity for sustained success. We only take legal action when all other means of resolution have been exhausted. But when we litigate on behalf of our members, our success rate is always very high. Business owners who ignore the Copyright Law in the belief that they can escape penalty should treat this very seriously. Don't steal our members' music."

[ThinkInsane]

ASCAP can lick me.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Karaoke bars, Cover Bands, and Wedding Singers to be illegal.

About bloody time.

[Mafia]

Originally posted by Face Ache:
About bloody time.

ditto

[CD Hanks]

Karaoke bars and Wedding singers I won't miss. Cover bands I'll miss...somewhat.

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by Face Ache:
About bloody time.

don't make me go to australia to sing you my version of "It's Raining Men"


biatch!!!!!!!

[MaxPower2k3]

is that pronounced "ass-cap"? is that a variation of asshat?

[saddino]

As long as there's been recorded music (i.e. by recording companies), performance rigths have been handled by ASCAP (and BMI and others). This is nothing new. If you ever see a vintage 50s jukebox, go ahead and look inside: you'll find odometer counters that literally counted how many times each song was played so that the owner would know how much money to send to the performace rights company. Eventually, instead of counting each song, ASCAP and BMI started counting in a more "statistical" method, but every time you hear a song played in a public place (e.g. an elevator playing music), somebody is paying for the right to play it.

Historically, ASCAP and others have always gone after bars and nightclubs that play recorded music without paying royalties. Again, this is nothing new. This is the way its always been.

And, FYI, none of this makes "karoke bars, cover bands, and wedding singers" illegal. Karaoke bars almost exclusively play "sound like" songs (rerecorded), so there are no performance rights involved (the karaoke song creator has already paid a compulsory license to record a "cover"). Likewise, cover bands and wedding singers do not play the original music, hence they do not owe ASCAP anything. However, they may owe the songwriters compulsories.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
don't make me go to australia to sing you my version of "It's Raining Men"

Mate if you want to come down here and try that you're welcome. I know a few biker bars, or maybe we could take you to the Imperial in Sydney.

[OldManMac]

Where is it stated that anything is going to be illegal? It's just time for those who make their money singing other people's songs pay up. That's the law, and the only way around that is to work to change it, or take the chance that you could wind up in court, which is exactly what's happening here. Stealing is wrong, whether you're caught or not.

[chris v]

As much as I wish Karaoke were being outlawed, what the situation here revolves around is licensing. If you broadcast music to x number of people (I forget 20? 50?) over a system of x size (expressed in wattage, I think) for profit, then royalties are due copyright holders of the works broadcast. Same as radio. These establishments get licensed by either ASCAP or BMI so that these organizations can distribute the royalties to the copyright holders. All songs are published by publishing companies, and all publishing companies belong to either BMI or ACAP, for the sake of receiving royalties for the woks they publish. Where the songwriters themselves win or lose is in the contract they have with the publishing company. It used to be standard practice for publishing companies to take 50% but now more and more musicians are forming their own publishing companies. ASCAP and BMI are not the bad guys. It's the record companies, the music industry lawyers and old-school publishers who push artists into sh*tty contracts that should be the focus of your outrage.

But while they're at it, can they go after piano bars, too?

Edit: What CarlG said.

[OldManMac]

IN the interest of fairness, here's another view on copyrights I just found. It makes some interesting points, and it appears to be go deeper than I had imagined.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1877/

Copywrongs
By Pat Aufderheide January 25, 2005

Budding filmmaker Jonathan Caouette spent$218 to make a movie on his Macintosh about his dysfunc-tional family, Tarnation. It went to Cannes and was released in theaters. But because the film interwove images of his family with many references to popular culture—each of which had to be cleared with the copyright owners—the film ended up costing $400,000.

Getting a copy of Eyes on the Prize, the classic documentary series on the civil rights movement, has turned into an eBay hunt for librarians. Why? Because rights to the many quoted images and sounds in the historical series have expired, and would cost more than $500,000 to re-license. The series is no longer in commercial distribution.

Veteran filmmaker David Van Taylor spent months following one-time Contragate schemer Ollie North on a political campaign for his film A Perfect Candidate. At one stop, he caught North surveying the crowd singing and swaying along to a singer intoning, “God Bless America.” He had to pay the Irving Berlin estate to use the song.

These are only three examples of the outrageous consequences of today’s interpretation of copyright law discovered in a study just completed at American University, “Untold Stories: The Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture.” They testify to the fact that unbalanced interpretation of copyright leads to a creative stranglehold.

Filmmakers must pay a license to use a pop song that may play in the background in a pizza parlor, an image or sequence from a movie or archival footage owned by someone else. They may need to pay not only songwriters but performers, not only movie studios but actors. There is no central place to find out who owns what. There is no rule of thumb for pricing. No one has to agree to license. And it doesn’t matter if you didn’t intend to quote it. Did somebody sing “Happy Birthday” in your documentary? Too bad—you owe Time Warner a small fortune.

A system that has a logic—it’s fair to pay others to use their work—is spinning out of control. The copyright stranglehold has been tightening over the last decade, as media consolidation has also consolidated control over film and photo archives. It has also been driven by big media companies’ fear of digital copying. Copyright, which has always contained rights for users as well as for owners, has increasingly been tilted toward the rights of owners. Rights of users, such as “fair use,” are getting harder and harder to claim. (“Fair use” is guided by one general concept: Do the public cultural benefits of the use outweigh the private economic costs?)

The copyright creative stranglehold may be strongest where it is hardest to see: on the imagination itself. The strictures of copyright clearance today make documentarians avoid social criticism, cultural commentary, historical films, satire and parody.

“The biggest problem is self-censorship,” says filmmaker Jeffrey Tuchman, who regularly works for the major cable networks. “You don’t try what’s not possible.”

What’s not possible is decided by the people who show documentarians’ work—mostly broadcasters. They avoid the very whiff of litigation, even frivolous litigation. And so balancing features of the copyright law, like fair use, simply are ruled out.

At the same time, some filmmakers are fighting for their rights, including the right to fair use. For instance, Robert Greenwald successfully asserted his right to quote Fox News without license fees in his documentary Outfoxed.

The problems faced by filmmakers are also faced by book authors, musicians and other artists. But because documentarians both want copyright (as a protection for their own work) and also need to quote other people’s work, they have ended up, unsuspectingly, on the front lines of a wide-ranging battle for the right to quote and comment on our own culture.

Documentarians now have a chance to become part of the solution. If filmmakers can collectively say what their “best practices” are—that is, what is within the law and equitable—in employing fair use, such a statement could become a powerful negotiating tool for more liberal interpretations of copyright law.

Artists who understand copyright law better—especially its balancing features—have more creative freedom. More education of creators and gatekeepers is critical.

[demograph68]

Originally posted by Face Ache:
About bloody time.

NOOOOOOOOO

[MilkmanDan]

Ok, anyone find this set of things bad?

1) The US keeps telling Japan to remilitarize. The Pres and his Cabinate have come out several times telling Japan to scrap a part of its constitution (the one we wrote for the after WWII) and build up a military again.

2) Karaoke takes Japan by storm. Its everywhere, and its cheaper then going to a movie. Everyone does it. Young people, old people, business men going out for fun.

3) The US starts acting all fussy about music copyright law, including that of Karaoke bars.

Remember what happen last time we cut Japan off from important resources? Yeah, thats right. Watch out Hawaii.

(note: this is extreme sarcasm and not expected to be treated with any sort of logical or serious way. I like Japan, and I like doing karaoke in Japan. Please don't kill me)

P.S. I'm so sorry Colin, and everyone else in this video.

[chris v]

Originally posted by MilkmanDan:

P.S. I'm so sorry Colin, and everyone else in this video.

Ow. just... ow.