JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Industry Message Forum ASCAP fees for small venues

Doug,

I read you criticizing an imperfect system, but I'm not sure what you are advocating.

Do you want to abolish PRO's? How then do you suggest songwriters get paid for public performance of their work? Who, other than some type of PRO, would do this and how would they be able to perform such an immense task as to pay each songwriter for each song used all over the U.S. in one day?

If you are advocating for a venue to be excused from their duty to pay a PRO by paying the songwriter directly, who, then, would be responsible if the singer/songwriter just went ahead and performed someone else's song? Or if the singer/songwriter was plagiarising?

Or are you simply advocating the free use of intellectual property?

The system is imperfect because of the enormity of the task, not because the PROs are trying to screw the little guy. Don't you think the PRO managers, if they could, wouldn't love to get every songwriter/member a check for a buck or three every week with an accounting of where their song was performed? Songwriters would be flocking to join up. No, the PROs aren't trying to screw the little guy, they're trying to get venues to pay for the privilege of using intellectual property, then trying to distribute this money as fairly as the enormity of the task and the limitation of the technology allows. And, if the technology gets to the point where they CAN distribute more fairly, songwriters had better hope we haven't taken the teeth out of the laws in place already in their favor. It would be a much bigger hill to climb.

I've seen and heard arguments about this for a few decades now. It seems to me that it mostly affects the music business at the entry level or at the amateur level. Singer/songwriters aren't usually as upset by the fact that they don't get the ten cents or whatever from their song being played...they're more concerned that they just have a place to play...so they panic when the club says it's closing down music because of the PRO fee. And the clubs? Heck if they were paying the musicians $50 apiece a night, that PRO fee wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket...just have two weeks with no music and that would cover the cost of the fees. Of course, if clubs had to pay $50 a night per musician, then the singer/songwriters would be up in arms against it ("The venues can't afford it! We have no place to play! It's too big a burden!")

The arts are funny, artists will screw each other in a heartbeat to get a free gig.

Anyway, you don't have to answer me, Doug, I don't expect to change your mind, just expressing my views. Meanwhile, thanks for posting and expressing yours. It makes for good spirited debate and good reading. That's what JPF thrives on.

All the Best,
Mike