 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: jmsa
Date: 2005-01-28 17:06
Please explain what ASCAP is and exactly what are these businesses being accused of.
jmsa
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2005-01-28 21:37
ASCAP represents the owners of a song's rights for public performance and publishing - in most cases the actual song writer owns these.
http://www.ascap.com/index.html
The article does not mention the complaint in the multiple lawsuits, but it is likely related to public performance of material under copywrite protection without permission (the venues must normally pay a royalty fee to ASCAP).
It's all about intellectual property, who owns it and GETTING PAID.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-01-31 19:52
According to the first link, ASCAP has sued various night clubs and similar small sites where music is performed, claiming that its members owned the copyrights for the music that was performed, that the performances were without permission and that a fee should have been paid.
ASCAP is, I believe, legally required to grant permissions like this and is entitled to collect a relatively small fee (because the performance venues are small), which it distributes to the copyright owners, after ASCAP's expenses are paid. (ASCAP's operations are highly comptuerized, so its expenses are small.)
These small payments don't mean much to copyright owners, but they mean a lot to ASCAP and the music industry in general, particularly where a performance reaches a lot of people (e.g., national television, Muzak, though these may be uncer BMI).
As a financial matter, ASCAP obviously can't make back what a lawsuit costs by collecting the few dollars that these places owe. Suits like this filed for purposes of publicity and to remind club owners that they need to get permission and pay the fees.
Basically, this is how musicians get paid for the use of their coyrights.
Ken Shaw
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Author: kal
Date: 2005-02-01 05:56
When did ASCAP become so litigious? It has always denounced the RIAA's practice of prosecuting filesharers. I suppose one could make the argument that a profitable venue is different from an individual running p2p apps, but still.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-02-01 15:50
The only mechanism for payment for use of musical creative property (assuming that the rights have not been sold up front) is through the agencies set up to collect such payment. Most don't know this since the process is relatively transparent to the nominal end user; i.e., there doesn't appear to be a meter that clicks off each tune as it is played. But, the system is there, none the less, hidden in the overhead of large hotels and the like.
For example, there is no mechanism that captures the exact number of times that the tune Happy, Happy Birthday Baby gets played, each and every time and location that it occurs. (And, we play that one a lot...) Instead, the copyright owners, ASCAP, and the venues (those that pay the "seat tax") agree to apportion out the monies collected from the seat tax according to a formula that takes input from sampling at a variety of venues, then shovels out the tin to those copyright owners who are "registered" with the service.
(Incidentally, arrangers get nothing for this except the cost for their time to construct the actual arrangement and the physical arrangement papers themselves. It's odd, as some arrangers are mostly responsible for making otherwise dud tunes a hit, but that's the way the system works.)
It's not an exact accounting, but it's better than the alternative in terms of burden and fairness. The ones who don't like it are the ones that think that they should have free run through everyone else's property. Such is life.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2005-02-01 16:32
....Financial Malpractice, you might say. I sensed something was wrong when I found more lawyers in the phone book than doctors...
Bob Draznik
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Author: Rick Williams
Date: 2005-02-01 16:46
From what I've gathered reading a number of media sources is that the venues being sued were sort of the bad boys of the lot who pretty well thumbed their noses at ASCAP. An ASCAP spokesperson mentioned one club that they had been talking to for 5 years!
ASCAP also freely admitted that the point in filing so many actions at once was to garner attention. Based on this I don't think ASCAP's actions can be compared except superficially to RIAA's tactics.
Best
Rick
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2005-02-01 20:22
I'm waiting to be arrested for all those Top-40 tunes I used to play at weddings and such, for which our bands never paid a cent of royalties to anyone..........shall I waltz on down to the police station and turn myself in?
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Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 2005-02-01 21:52
David Spiegelthal wrote:
> I'm waiting to be arrested for all those Top-40 tunes I used to
> play at weddings and such, for which our bands never paid a
> cent of royalties to anyone..........shall I waltz on down to
> the police station and turn myself in?
Seriously, wouldn't the venues in which you played, i.e., the catering halls, hotels, etc, be responsible for paying ASCAP? What would your liability be if you played a gig in someone's house for a wedding, or the bride/groom's liablity? Is it considered a "commercial" purpose if it's for a private party, as long as you're being paid? What if you're not being paid?
On another note (no, I'm not sorry for the pun), what is the difference between ASCAP and BMI?
Steve Epstein
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Author: ginny
Date: 2005-02-02 03:15
"When did ASCAP become so litigious? It has always denounced the RIAA's practice of prosecuting filesharers. I suppose one could make the argument that a profitable venue is different from an individual running p2p apps, but still."
They went after a cafe owner that hired me to play at lunches way back in the 1980s as a matter of fact. The owner let me deal with them, so I didn't lose my gig. They wanted several hundred dollars for my playing classical guitar. They tried to claim that they owned the FINGERINGS on the editions I learned from (I did my own fingerings, and some are the only logical ones.)
It took me several months to get rid of them. I played music from the Baroque and Classical periods, with a very few modern pieces. I insisted that they send a represenatitve to meet with me and go over my repertoire to check for any tune they actually had the rights on. As it turns out there was only one, Madronos by Torroba. I never played it again. They left us alone after that. I consider them to be a bunch of bullies. I understand that the way royalities are given out is rather unfair, determination of play time is very much a matter of self-interest.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2005-02-02 15:19
One cause of erratic things with ASCAP may be their use of temporary contract workers to sample performances at various venues. There's probably little else that they can do to operate efficiently, but it sounds like the guitar situation must stem from someone's personal quirks.
In this case, it might've been well to consider some sort of public litigation (or at least a credible threat of it) as well. When trade organizations or labor unions go over the line, it is usually due to ignorance or hubris on the part of some individual. A black eye on said individual (or on the entire organization) is the best way to keep other individuals from acting too individually.
This guitar story would expose ASCAP to some pretty serious ridicule, and could well affect the way they train their operatives.
Allen Cole
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-02-02 20:18
I agree with the above assessment. ASCAP is stuck in a no-win situation, as are all quasi-regulatory authorities like private security guards, unions, homeowner's associations and the like.
The purpose of ASCAP and BMI is to protect the interests of the intellectual property owners, the same as the private security guard protects the property of his employer, the union steward and business agent the interests of their members, or the homeowner's association the integrity of the neighborhood. In doing so, they are virtually guaranteed to come up against the groups who do not share the interest of their employer. Automatically, problems are going to crop up based solely upon this relationship, because there are always those who don't agree with the ideas of others.
Now, some may say that there is no harm in the use of Happy Birthday "for free" (it's not in the public domain, by the way). However, put the shoe on the other foot ("I'd like $100 out of your retirement fund; you're not using it right now and it's a lot more convenient for me to get the money from you than to earn it myself") and the attitude changes very quickly.
Put bluntly, the fruits of intellectual property accrue to those who came up with the ideas behind it in the first place. The reasons that kings originally granted monopolies like patents and copyright is that thievery was rampant in the old days and very often those who put out all of the creative effort were robbed of the reward by those willing to steal for their own purposes. (The American companies that "stole" the Gilbert & Sullivan productions by sitting in audiences in England and taking notes and transcribing songs and lyrics are some of the more salient examples of this.)
However, what the kings (and governments) granted they also made it hard to enforce; as the holder of the patent, trademark or copyright, YOU have to initiate the enforcement and see it through. (They were willing to go only so far to protect the rights they "surrendered" to the people, if you will.) This makes it relatively easy to "steal" intellectual property, since the police won't do anything, unlike when I grab your purse and run.
So, we're stuck with laws that are on the books, but which are also notoriously hard to enforce. (Ask the guy who just won the intermittent windshield wiper idea after twenty plus years of litigation with the Big Three automakers about that.) As a result, "everyone" breaks the law so much that it becomes a joke, then they whine when the property owner actually take action under their legal rights to recover what's due them.
I take the position that I avoid stepping on the rights of others whenever possible. (Having my own patent, along with copyright (registered and otherwise) on a significant number of items, demands that I do no less for them than I would want done for me.) My musical group plays venues that pay the seat tax, and I hold one copy of the music that I purchase from arrangers as a reserve, issuing only a "use" copy to the musicians. (Both of my arrangers agree with this approach, by the way.)
But, will I categorically state that I've never copied a show book so as to put together two or three books into one? Nope. Have I ever played copyrighted compositions in a venue where there is no payment of seat tax? Of course; we all have done that. But, one of the reasons for the ASCAP/BMI collection system being the way that it is is the need to account for uses like the nursing home gig or the nursery school performance. In effect, the profit venues subsidize the "non-profit" uses.
Would I sue for infringement of my patent? Not now; I allowed it to go into the public domain and you're free to do so if you choose. However, you still can't claim the idea as your own; that's mine in perpetuity.
What about reprinting my literary output as your own? Well, assuming that you were desperate enough to want to pirate writing on ice hockey, industrial safety or military history, of course. Copyright is the gift that keeps on giving for many, many years; I wrote the stuff, and I'm legally entitled to profit from it. I'll trade you my intellectual rights for the keys to your bank account if you somehow feel slighted...
Push comes to shove, people's attitude to intellectual property rights always suffers a marked shift when those people get some intellectual property of their own...
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