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Hey! Does that mean if I join BMI, I too can get paid for other people's songs

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Not according to my friend who is a longtime BMI musician. He tells me that the money is apportioned according to radio plays. So when your venue gets strong-armed, and you are playing Hank Williams and Johnny Cash songs in your band, the money goes to Shania Twain, Brad Paisely, and the Dixie Chicks. You don't get any of it. Thats fair isn't it?

If this isn't the way it works, someone who knows for sure please correct me.

See whose listed at www.bmi.com

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The inventor of the "hula hoop" never got a dime from all those who used it, in any manner, AFTER it was purchased. It would seem to me that the best way is for the song writer and performers to charge a fee, make it as high as you feel is right to cover your costs and markup (same as any business has to do). Tie it to EVERY sale of that CD or recording.

THEN let the marketers of that CD recover that cost (plus profit) during the producing and distribution of that product. And then forget about BMI or ASCAP, or any other watchdog policing body that tried to play gestapo to all who use that product for whatever reason.

It seems to me that if the practice as is now done, was to apply to every item an owner uses in his business, it would be a staggering, if not impossible nightmare of bookeeping and accounting.

There has gotta be a better way (at the source) rather than to punish the ones on down the line. To me a purchase of ANY thing means ownership. I believe that all royalties need come from the sale of any item and not when or how it is used.

I can just see Hartley Peavey demanding a royalty ANY time one plays for gain through a Peavey amplifier. (Dollar gain that is ) When ya bought that amplifier, it became YOURS. To me the same should go for any item purchased including a purchaser buying a recording.

Flame suit on. Please be kind

I agree with you.

Whenever I buy it,and it gets into my house, IT'S MINE. I'll do whatever I wish with it. This is not just music,it's anything I have legally purchased.

Question :
How would you (a consumer) like to have to pay a tax on the air you breathe ????

Thinking as a BMI mousefart,The goverment own most of the forrest and trees that convert sunshine and carbon dioxide into the nice breathable air that you and I enjoy. Now as we use air produced by the trees, it's only right that we pay a royalty on each breath we take.

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http://home.comcast.net/~crookwf/

also...

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ASCAP took in $688 Million buckos last year, and kept $90 Million of it. The average Joe was paid $341.71

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I LOVE those kinds of statistics!!! (Thanks William) That sounds like a pretty good profit margin for "Mr.Big" to me.

And as usual, the little guy is getting screwed by "Mr. Big".

And as usual, he's the same little guy that defends "Mr. Big" so vehemently.

And as usual, he can't be convinced he's barking up the wrong tree, and actually hurting himself by arguing with his potential customers.

And...

If you (ahem) steel-playing "songwriters" continue to bitch about the nickels and dimes you're losing, I imagine the steel shows will eventually disappear.

But then...you wouldn't care, would you?

After all, it's just those nickles and dimes that concern you.

I sincerely hope that someday ALL you aspiring songwriters make it big. I hope you write a song that sells a million copies. And, I hope you realize that this song (which earned some "Mr. Big" about 2 1/2 million dollars) will probably net you a whopping $22,000, after taxes and expenses. I'm sure you will be most thankful and appreciative towards "Mr. Big", who is laughing all the way to the bank and thinking "I sure am glad there's one born every minute!"

I am the one that produced the stats for ASCAP. Yes, 13.9 percent (actual number stated by ASCAP) is pretty low overhead, much better than most charity organizations that people donate to. I put the stats in because you said:

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It's actually a rather small organization with a small suite of offices in Hollywood in a high rise office building(I've been there) as well as a few agents in other cities.

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I was trying to make the point that these organizations are not small. $688M is not in the same class as a pizzeria... Its BIG business. I gave stats for ASCAP, and you are talking BMI, but I think the numbers make a point. At the time, I was not able to find specific information for BMI. But seek and ye shall find....

Here is a link with industry data which is pretty interesting. According to the New York Times, the industry raked in over $1.3 billion dollars in 01. BMI's income for 02 was $630 million dollars. Thats hardly a 'rather small organization'. So BMI and ASCAP are pretty much on par.
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/01/_despite_the_tr.html

Bill

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While in the background the band is playing "a waiter survives" Then theres the Cheesesteak business Hmmm.

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But if I got 13 % a Pizza,say he sells 2400 Pizzas a month @ $8.00. A mere average of 600 a week.Thats 1.04 a Pizza That would be 2496.00 a month thats 29952.00

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You are kidding, right? If you are willing to own a pizza shop in NYC to make a mere $30K a year, by all means go for it.

If you are saying that BMI should get 13 percent of each pizza, then you are saying that each customer should pay $1.00 extra for the privilege of listening to crap they don't like and didn't ask for.

Maybe the solution would be for ASCAP/BMI to install jukeboxes in shops for free, and split the profit with the shopkeepers. A win-win for everyone.

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Let's all be friends and have a beer and an extra large pizza and leave a 13.9% tip. -MJ-

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Hey, I'll drink to that... no anchovies on the pizza though.

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But say - we've made our respective points. Let's all be friends

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Period.

Yeah, I don't pay Hartley Peavey every time I use an amp of his, but you better believe if I started making knockoff Peaveys I would hear from an attorney in a heartbeat, because the knockoffs would be a clear intellectual property violation of his patents...

If it weren't for IP rights, it would be harder for people to make a living developing new technologies, and harder for people to make a living at creative work... thus would be more difficult for you to have a job making records or writing or whatever else.

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Throw in a beer and Smiley Roberts will appear in this thread too...

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Yeah,but it would have to be a Beck's Dark! None o' that "light" crap.(Hey waitress,gimme annuder one,& dis time,compress da head,willya?!) No anchovies for me either. Those're them nasty little fish that smell like fingers.

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  ~ ~
  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

688 million..thats a lot of Pizza's..but I just have to ask..Chicago or NY ?
RayBari's or Famous Original Rays ?

This is the important stuff..The Pizza guy who's gettin' sued..does he at least make a good Pie ? I mean..lets at least start at the beginning and get a reference..

Oh and Carl..you're smoking to much of the good stuff..too much sense..whats wrong with you brother?

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I'm interested in playing music in my restaurant or other business. I know that I need permission for live performances. Do I need permission if I am using only CD's, records, tapes, radio or TV?

Yes, you will need permission to play records or tapes in your establishment. Permission for radio and television transmissions in your business is not needed if the performance is by means of public communication of TV or radio transmissions by eating, drinking, retail or certain other establishments of a certain size which use a limited number of speakers or TVs, and if the reception is not further transmitted (for example, from one room to another) from the place in which it is received, and there is no admission charge. Your local ASCAP licensing manager can discuss your needs and advise how ASCAP can help you.

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For what it's worth, according to the ASCAP site, a business just using the radio over speakers would not owe anything.

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From ASCAP site:

A food service or drinking establishment is eligible for the exemption if it (1) has less than 3750 gross square feet of space (in measuring the space, the amount of space used for customer parking only is always excludable); or (2) has 3750 gross square feet of space or more and (a) uses no more than 6 loudspeakers of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space

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and frankly for even a smaller business the idea of paying just over twenty dollars a month (actually $20.83) to play CDs and/or have performers making live music that covered BMI material just really doesn't seem like the big, extortion-style deal this is being hyped into.

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The way that the restaurant is doing it now seems to be better for the artist that's getting their music played.
The pizza guy buys a CD of artist "X" and the writers of those songs get their royalties from the CD sell.

With the pizza place paying "just over twenty dollars a month" that would go into a BMI fund that gets divided up between artist "Y" and "X" and artist "Z" and who knows who. So now artist "X" is getting their music played in the restaurant, but artist "Y" is getting a check for it. That just doesn't make sense to me.

Also the pizza place is paying royalties when they buy the CD for $20 and now they have to pay over $20 a month to play it? There should be some kind of royalty tax exemption for people that pay monthly to BMI and ASCAP. If their going to pay into BMI for royalties to play the CD then why should they pay royalties on the purchase.

I think the whole BMI and ASCAP thing should be completely revamped. The way it is right now a club pays a fee for having music, but the artist and writers responsible for the music being played in the clubs, restaurants, bars, etc, aren't necessarily the ones getting the money.
From what I've read about it the money that BMI and ASCAP collect from annual business licensing fees goes into a fund that gets divided up according to radio play and unit sells.
So that means that if I play a gig doing Robert Earl Keen & Joe Ely songs then Mutt Lang & Shania Twain get paid for it. That's just not fair no matter how you look at it.

There should be some kind of a system set up so that the writers, responsible for the songs that actually get played, get paid.
I have no idea of how it should be fixed, but I do think it needs to be.

What about a Juke Box at the all night Dinner ? You put $.50 in the Accordian looking chrome thing. Pay to play..who pays the royalty then ?

$20.80 does not seem like much..but for each establishment..every block, every street, every city..and like stated..artist X plays but artist Y+Z get the zing..thats seems a bit tilted..and what if artist X is playing his or her own self written music..back to the original topic on page 1....Artist Y and Z get paid for artist X to play his own self written tunes !!

"Cant' we all just get along"

Where's Rodney when ya need him most..

5 cents per gallon gas tax didn't seem like much 40 years ago either..It's for the Children..

It makes about as much sense as it CAN make considering that down at the pizzaria/nightclub level there's no way of keeping track of exactly which BMI music is getting played so averaging it out like that is the only way to do it.

there is a separate rate schedule for jukeboxes, and if you have one jukebox on the premises (the fee schedule gives a fluid volume discount; each additional machine reduces the per machine average cost substantially) you pay $371 per juke, I believe it's an annual charge, but I'm not
sure. This is the rate table: http://www.jukeboxlicense.com/JLO_Rate_Sheet_2004.htm

That makes a difference when you compare the cost of licensing for a small restaurant type venue...

I'm not saying BMI and ASCAP aren't fraught with problems... but when you mention that pop acts are getting most of the payout from it, it's partly because the only places that are consistently paying for public performance or broadcast rights are big venues, and radio stations; both of them play music by the laundry list of crappy commercial performers. If you could count the number of jukebox plays, or whatever, for smaller artists, they would receive a bigger portion of the money.

Yeah, I buy rights when I buy a CD, I buy the right to listen to it myself, or play within reason for a group of people. I don't own the right to broadcast it over the internet, or a pirate radio station or whatever else... the rights you buy are pretty specific; maybe I do the artist a favor by introducing them to people, but whether that's true or not is not considered by the general paramters of the licensing system... you don't pay for the right to do whatever you want with a record for a mere $20.

[This message was edited by Nicholas Dedring on 26 May 2004 at 09:25 AM.]

Will LIVE Music die..or should it die because BMI wants $20/mth from the Moose Lodge , American Legions , the Pizza parlors or the local Town Fairs where they have bands play for free every 2nd Saturday evening at the Town Center Green..

And

Does the guy who performs his own songs in Public still have to pay the BMI fee's so that Eminem, Brittany and Madonna can get there cash?

Seems like it's out of control to me..especially because if you buy any CD's and can't stand them due to poor performances or songs..you can't return them ! Now there's a monopoly...the fix is in..

How many of those recordings were purchased in good faith where the buyer pretty much got burn't..and had no recourse..or are they thinking everyone that purchased CD's loved 'em all to death..

Somewhere common sense should prevail..but never when cash is available..

"Money For nothin' and the Chicks for Free"

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Yeah, I buy rights when I buy a CD, I buy the right to listen to it myself, or play within reason for a group of people. I don't own the right to broadcast it over the internet, or a pirate radio station or whatever else..

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