Subject: [Harp-L] Yet another impediment to live music

["Glenn Weiser" <celticguitar1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim-

ASCAP-BMI has the legal right to collect fees from venues where copyrighted 
music is played live, just as they have the right to collect fees from 
jukebox owners in bars and restaruants, radio stations, etc. This sometimes 
discourages marginal venues from having live music. Venues can always get 
around this, though, by offering either traditional folk or other public 
domain music, or original music by the performing artists only. That happens 
also.

As burdensome as this seems, ASCAP-BMI has the law on it's side here. 
Artists deserve compensation for their work, and ASCAP-BMI is the enforcer. 
And nobody likes enforcers. As an artist who plays live and who also has 
copyrighted music out there, I can it see from both sides. We musicians all 
need places to play, and it sucks to lose a good room. But the people who 
write music and get it out there shouldn't get deprived of their due either. 
I've talked to older, struggling musicians who have gotten much needed 
dental work paid for with those ASCAP checks, for example. That money just 
doesn't go to the rich and famous. So all in all, it's a fair law.

-Glenn Weiser
http://www.celticguitarmusic.com/harppage.htm