Originally Posted by Toker41
So, using other peoples songs to make money isn't stealing?
The band is making money. They pay no fees, or royalties.
You've got it backwards, morals decide what the law is.
The fees and royalties ARE paid. They are paid by the venues who pay the fee for the license, not by the band.
The problem is that it's a logistic nightmare to expect the bands to pay based upon the exact material they perform. What happens when someone comes up and makes a special request? Or what happens if the band plays a medely of covers? Or when the band plays a random mix over their PA during the set breaks? What about when a band plays the Joe Cocker arrangement of "The Letter" on Friday, but the Box Tops arrangement on Saturday; or more to the point, plays their own arrangement not previously recorded? It's not like a radio station where they're expected to log every single song they play,how much of that song they play, and whether it's an original arrangment or one taken mostly from a previously published chart.
ASCAP recognizes that this is not realistic to expect from your average cover band. Nor is it realistic (or fair) to expect that from the venue. Your average cover band venue has no idea who they may or may not book a couple of months down the line, let alone the content of their exact playlist. The same is true of juke boxes and karaoke and playing their favorite FM station over the house system.
So instead they worked out a system where the venue simply buys a yearly license that itimizes the categories of performance they will offer (live, juke box, etc.) and a reasonable estimate of how much time and/or songs (again, I forget which) they may host over the year. The fees from these yearly licenses from clubs and bars and music halls around the continent are pooled into an account out of which the artists and publishers are paid their percentage based upon estimates based upon market research that indicates the popularity and overall percentage of all the cover work out there that they could reasonably lay claim to.
It's not a perfect system, by far, but it's workable. And it does ensure that the artists, composers and publishers are getting a somewhat reasonable source of revenue for the use of their property by cover bands, karaoke singers, juke box use, and public use of radio broadcast.
So no, there's nothing for the cover band to feel guilty about because they are not stealing anything. The onus for payment is on the venue that hires them; if anything it's the venues who do not pay ASCAP fees who should feel guilty. Remember, it's the venues that are ultimately making the money off the performance; the band is really just the company hired to perform the service. The money the band gets comes out of the revenue generated by the venue.
But most legitimite clubs (at least around here) that regularly feature live entertainment have no problem paying the ASCAP fees; the fees realtive to the revenue in liquor sales that good live entertainment helps to generate is a tiny price to pay as insurance against their business being put in legal jeopardy.
Everybody gets paid, everybody makes a fair share of the profit (including the original performers/publishers), everybody is happy, and no laws have been broken.
G.
