HELP please, before another music venue goes down tubes....

webmiztris · Post by **webmiztris** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

BMI has contacted the Castle Pub about our entertainment...they want to hit the bar with licensing fees for each cover band/acoustic act that plays at the Castle. I've heard of this happening in other larger areas and I guess BMI has finally found its way to our podunk neck of the woods. They found the Castle's entertainment schedule through Myspace. I've heard the fees being everything from $100 a band to $900 a year and I don't know which is right, but either way it's a lot of cash!. The owner doesn't want to do this obviously and might do away with bands altogether. I don't want to let this happen.

My question is this....to Lisa of the Popper and other bar owners on here or anyone else with information...are other clubs in this area being hit with these BMI or ASCAP fees so that they can keep having bands? If so, how much is typically charged? Is deleting the entertainment from Myspace and not advertising bands the way to go? HELP!!

moxham123 · Post by **moxham123** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

Here is some background information I have on BMI & ASCAP. They have been enforcing the long running license fee issue at many places recently The venues either quit having entertainment or go out of business and that has been bad for the band business.

BMI & ASCAP have been targeting establishments in the area very much the last couple years.

The license fees are based on a scale determined by the capacity of people that can fit into the building and how many days a week there is entertainment along with the following types of entertainment:

Live bands, solo acts, & DJ's and/or karaoke - highest fee
DJ's and/or karaoke
Live bands only
Solo acts only
DJ's only
Karaoke only
In house sound system playing CD's or tapes

The jukebox license fees are paid by the company that provides and maintains the jukebox for the establishment (not the bar itself) and is paid for out of the money that is put into the jukebox. The jukebox keeps track of every song that is played on it. The only way this fee would be paid by the bar owner is if he or she owned the jukebox and maintained it themselves.

Some places that have gone through the legal process or refused to pay the license fees in Indiana, Cambria, Westmoreland, and Somerset, County have either quit having bands and DJ's completely or have opted for the lower fee to have DJ's and quit having bands. This has cost us several places to play and many gigs. The bar owners are losing lots of money because they made their most profits when they had bands. They do not do as well with DJ's.

A couple years ago, we were playing several venues in the Blairsville and Indiana area. BMI & ASCAP went after the owners to pay the license fees. They were smaller venues that had D.J.'s every Friday and bands every Saturday and drew a nice crowd on band nights and not many people for D.J.'s

The owners were told that their annual license fees would be $1,200 to have the bands and D.J.'s for two nights per week (bascially, it would work out to $11.50 per night of entertainment for 104 dates a year) The annual license fee for just the D.J. was $600 for the same amount of dates. The more nights per week there is entertainment, the higher the fee. I can't understand how the D.J. fee is lower since they are playing the actual recordings of the songs by the orginal artists versus a band doing their own version of the songs.

The owners' attorneys told them they would have to pay a license fee in order to continue to provide musical entertainment so that they could attract people. If they did not pay the fee, BMI and ASCAP would enforce fines and/or sue them for payment. The places stopped having bands and several bands lost frequent work at those venues. One one of the places is up for sale because their business dropped way off without entertainment.

KyleMayket · Post by **KyleMayket** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

what if the establishment only had original bands, and not cover bands?

sunsetbass · Post by **sunsetbass** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

if i remember correctly. even if he quits having bands all together he will still have to pay because of the juke box. unless that has changed. i remember in my earlier years bar owners bitching a fit because thwey had to pay that and they only had djs. so i'm not sure what the law is now but i think thats the way it used to be. either way its wrong. what about the bands that are doing originals. do they get a cut of the money they collect. probibly not. anyway you look at it it's some potitian trying to line their pockets with cash. or who ever the hell they are.

webmiztris · Post by **webmiztris** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

he already pays fees for the jukebox, so this would just be for bands and DJs and acoustic....

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

I've been told by cats who have been around longer than myself that BMI comes around every couple of years and does this.

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

KyleMayket wrote:what if the establishment only had original bands, and not cover bands?

Then there would be no fees.

BMI and ASCAP are organizations that collect the fees for performance licenses for music. These performance licenses are often the only licenses song writers retain for the music they write, because record companies have the rights to the recordings. Therefore, the income generated by the performance rights, collected by BMI and ASCAP can be the only music related income a lot of songwriters get.

$900 a year is $75 a month. If the bar makes more than that from having bands, then they should probably pay it.

I'm sure I'm gonna get bitched at for this, but I've said before that I have no sympathy for people that steal from musicians, and claim to be musicians. Maybe you don't see it that way, but I bet sometime in your life you wanted to be a rock star, and this is how rockstar's get paid.

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

by the way, here's a post I made in the law section about 2 years ago that deals with this subject.

As is outlined in there, one thing that is for sure is that if you don't pay the fees, and get caught, you will be so much worse than any other situation.

http://rockpage.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

Colton · Post by **Colton** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

MeYatch wrote:I'm sure I'm gonna get bitched at for this, but I've said before that I have no sympathy for people that steal from musicians, and claim to be musicians. Maybe you don't see it that way, but I bet sometime in your life you wanted to be a rock star, and this is how rockstar's get paid.

Thats right. You cant be a musician if youve heard other songs, learned them, and had them influence you in any way. Thieving bastards!

Just fucking with ya Mitch, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

RobTheDrummer · Post by **RobTheDrummer** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

It's all a bunch of bullshit when it comes down to it.

webmiztris · Post by **webmiztris** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

Well, this is the first time the Castle's been asked for fees....maybe it's been popular around here, but not at the Castle. I understand why fees are charged and IN WAYS agree with why it's done, but I also don't want to cancel all of our entertainment, and the owner is likely to do just that if he needs to start paying fees. I just need some information for him and then I need to cross my fingers that he'll pay them rather than do away with entertainment altogether.

Colton · Post by **Colton** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

The whole "If you dont pay the fees, and lose the entertainment, youre gonna see a big loss in income" line might do the trick.

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

webmiztris wrote:Well, this is the first time the Castle's been asked for fees....maybe it's been popular around here, but not at the Castle. I understand why fees are charged and IN WAYS agree with why it's done, but I also don't want to cancel all of our entertainment, and the owner is likely to do just that if he needs to start paying fees. I just need some information for him and then I need to cross my fingers that he'll pay them rather than do away with entertainment altogether.

its pretty simple math. If the fees are $900 a year, its $75 a month. If the castle pub is having bands on any kind of regular basis, and is not seeing an additional $75 a month in income, they probably should have stopped having bands a long time ago.

The other option is to have all original bands.

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

ALSO, if you are already on their radar, you probably won't get away with just taking the schedule off your myspace (which in and of itself should probably bring you in an additional $75 worth of business)

I don't know if its specifically in the article I linked in the old thread, or if that article is even still up, but I've read before of BMI paying local students to come in and write down the cover songs getting paid. If they have any reason to believe you are screwing them, they will do this. Its the evidence in the lawsuit they are going to be building.

DrumAndDestroy · Post by **DrumAndDestroy** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

the fees are bullshit.

hopefully the owner pays the fee though. the castle is great for the 814 riot.

tonefight · Post by **tonefight** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

I hope he keeps it going, I can walk there.

Just break it down to cost per night so it seems low

$1200 sounds steep, but breaks down to $100 a month or $23 a weekend or $11.50 a night for friday and sat. That really isn't alot but it in a lump sum it seems like it. Make sure he know He will have to pay for DJs and Karaoke too.

I guess he can take $11.50 off the bands pay if he really feels its needed.

My question is this : How do they know what songs the bands or DJs are playing to get the money to the rightful song owner? Or are they just lining their own pockets?

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

tonefight wrote: My question is this : How do they know what songs the bands or DJs are playing to get the money to the rightful song owner? Or are they just lining their own pockets?

more than likely they don't. I don't know 100%, but I would guess the figures are based off radio play, or they check what some bands are playing in certain areas, and divide it up on a percentage basis..

At least one of the big PROs is member-owned. So I would think that the money is not just lining pockets. BMI, etc do not own the rights to these songs, they act on behalf of the song writers to collect them. They would not exist if the songwriters did not think they were getting enough money out of it to be worth it.

RobTheDrummer · Post by **RobTheDrummer** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

tonefight wrote:I hope he keeps it going, I can walk there.

Just break it down to cost per night so it seems low

$1200 sounds steep, but breaks down to $100 a month or $23 a weekend or $11.50 a night for friday and sat. That really isn't alot but it in a lump sum it seems like it. Make sure he know He will have to pay for DJs and Karaoke too.

I guess he can take $11.50 off the bands pay if he really feels its needed.

My question is this : How do they know what songs the bands or DJs are playing to get the money to the rightful song owner? Or are they just lining their own pockets?

Good Point, I mean, are they gonna watch your band and figure out where all the money goes? Like I said it's bullshit. You should have the freedom to play whatever you want to play, and bar owners should have the freedom to have whatever band they want to have in their establishments.

Really, if you think about it, what is a band or establishment taking away from an artist by playing their songs? Are you stealing their fans? Are you taking away from their concerts? Are you taking money out of their pockets? No, you are free advertising, so fuck them.

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

Colton wrote:The whole "If you dont pay the fees, and lose the entertainment, youre gonna see a big loss in income" line might do the trick.

MeYatch wrote:its pretty simple math. If the fees are $900 a year, its $75 a month. If the castle pub is having bands on any kind of regular basis, and is not seeing an additional $75 a month in income, they probably should have stopped having bands a long time ago.

I have to agree with both of my esteemed colleagues, Mr. Colton and Mr. Mitch. Nine hundred dollars a year really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, especially if it's a fixed cost that allows you to ultimately earn profits. I don't know what are the margins at the Castle, but I can guarantee that the owner WILL see a drop in revenues just to save a few Benjamins a year. That's why a venue hires entertainment to begin with: To attract customers that normally would not be there if you just had a jukebox and a pool table. The other option, obviously, is to go all-original. Will it work? I honestly don't know.

Sorry, I don't want to sound like I'm telling someone how to run their business here. I know that I don't have to sell this to Dawn. We love playing the Castle, and we had a great night the other week there after paying our dues at the venue for while. Plus, I make it a pretty well known fact that I'd play the Castle any day of the week over dealing with the owner of another Ebensburg live music venue named after a celebratory event that happened on the day before today. Dawn, I think that you're going to have to bust out the books from the past year and show your supervisor the numbers earned on live music nights, the cost of paying the fees, then explain how those earnings are going to go away if the fees aren't paid.

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

RobTheDrummer wrote: You should have the freedom to play whatever you want to play, and bar owners should have the freedom to have whatever band they want to have in their establishments.

and song writers should have exclusive rights to the performance of their song.

Intellectual property is one of the cornerstones of our country/civilization.

For some reason everyone and their brother thinks that music should be free.

moxham123 · Post by **moxham123** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

I can tell you from seeing the two BMI and ASCAP office buildings just in Nashville that much of the money goes for operations, attorneys, amd other expenses. The songwriters get a small percentage but if they get enough fees, it can add up.

webmiztris · Post by **webmiztris** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

MeYatch wrote:
webmiztris wrote:Well, this is the first time the Castle's been asked for fees....maybe it's been popular around here, but not at the Castle. I understand why fees are charged and IN WAYS agree with why it's done, but I also don't want to cancel all of our entertainment, and the owner is likely to do just that if he needs to start paying fees. I just need some information for him and then I need to cross my fingers that he'll pay them rather than do away with entertainment altogether.
its pretty simple math. If the fees are $900 a year, its $75 a month. If the castle pub is having bands on any kind of regular basis, and is not seeing an additional $75 a month in income, they probably should have stopped having bands a long time ago.

The other option is to have all original bands.

I have no idea if $900/a year was even in the ballpark of correctness...it's just one of the numbers I've heard thrown out there. I've also heard $75/band which is way more than $900/year....please don't quote me on figures that were only hearsay to begin with.

CHICKSINGA · Post by **CHICKSINGA** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

If all bands paid a little toward it it wouldn't be so prohibitive.

BMI & ASCAP have the right to assume the songs played - it's part of the protection they provide the artist. I used to be an associate member of ASCAP.

You can thank Napster, Limewire and all sharing for this. Artists have been getting ripped off and it's the only way to recoup. If you were a recording artist you'd see it differently.

You think it sux here, try living in LA for awhile. It doesn't even compare. I did for 8 years and it was like spitting in the ocean. But it's where the deals happen. Fortunately with the advent of the internet, Myspace, Facebook & all other media avenues there is more resources to be heard. When I lived here internet was in it's infancy, so we had to do it the old-fashioned way - hump it and market like hell. It's a tad easier now, the biggest obstacle being that everyone fancies themselves a star and has made the competition well even harder.

my 2 cents, anyhoo...

Merge · Post by **Merge** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

moxham123 wrote:I can tell you from seeing the two BMI and ASCAP office buildings just in Nashville that much of the money goes for operations, attorneys, amd other expenses. The songwriters get a small percentage but if they get enough fees, it can add up.

I totally agree.

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Monday Jan 12, 2009

webmiztris wrote:
I have no idea if $900/a year was even in the ballpark of correctness...it's just one of the numbers I've heard thrown out there. I've also heard $75/band which is way more than $900/year....please don't quote me on figures that were only hearsay to begin with.

Ahh, well disregard my rant on numbers in the earlier post. However, I still hold to the idea that this is just a business expense that has to be dealt with, just like paying the electric bill or the employees.