[asterisk-users] Royalty for On Hold Music ?

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 07:28:05PM -0400, SIP wrote:
> Lots of information around about people who've had issues with 
> rebroadcasting the radio in their business establishments. However, it 
> is rare that ASCAP et al go after anyone but the big moneymakers. The 
> old Bloom County rule still holds true: sue the one with the money.  For 
> instance, in 2005, Dennis Rodman ran afoul of ASCAP because he was 
> playing music over the speakers of his restaurant. Even HE complained 
> rather often that it seems ridiculous that the only way to get 
> permission to play music over the speakers of your local establishment 
> is to pay utterly prohibitive licensing fees to ASCAP each year, but 
> there's little that someone so public could have done to avoid being 
> noticed.

ASCAP and BMI annual blankets aren't actually that expensive.  A live
music venue run by some friends of mine had both, and for 535 fire-code
seating and about 150 nights a year, I think they paid $500 a year to
each of them.

So, let's decide that songwriting is something worth paying people to
do (that's who BMI and ASCAP royalties go to, people), and quit
whining, ok?

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com                     '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://photo.imageinc.us             +1 727 647 1274