[Fmpro] Webcasts/free music

[Michael Leahy]

I can't believe I'm reading this on a professional mailing list. 
Whatever about the issues of Ascap and BMI, direct licensing is usually 
a very bad idea for all the reasons that we mentioned in the "why isn't 
there a composers' union?" thread. It's the reason we're getting $3000 
for cuts in video games instead of getting full mechanical rights worth 
four or five times that.

Just about all the people that have been refusing to take out licenses 
for live performances have had very shaky reasons to do so. It's a 
professional expense. And in the case of radios, music is practically 
the sole thing they offer the audience. I think everyone by now knows 
that some 40% of revenue has gone missing from the music pot over the 
past few years. Yet they still think that they are doing musicians a 
favor by asking them for free music.

Your analogy with the hotel and Hertz doesn't stand up. It's more like 
refusing to pay for the pack of peanuts when you only want to eat one 
(and for free). That's more the scale we are talking about.

Michael
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:38:55 EDT
> From: CORBERLAW at aol.com
> Subject: [Fmpro] how blanket licenses work
> To: fmpro at nxport.com
> Message-ID: <bd1.2ffb805c.3576f7cf at aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
>  
> In a message dated 6/3/2008 5:03:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time,  
> fmpro-request at nxport.com writes:
>
> It's  exactly these kind of arrogant bullying tactics that energize
> well-funded  anti-royalty groups like the restaurant owners, etc to create
> legislation  attacking music royalties. Stunts like this hand the legislation
> to the  anti-copyright crowd on a golden platter, because nobody likes a
> bully,  much less a monopolistic (ok, duopolistic) bully.
>
>
> Here's how the license to  a restaurant works:  you want  to perform just one 
> song, you gotta buy a blanket license.  That's like  checking into a hotel 
> and being told you won't get a room until you book and pay  for every room in 
> the hotel or renting a car from hertz and being told you won't  get your car 
> until you rent and pay for every car they have on their  lot.
>  
> ASCAP and BMI's tactics with respect to restaurants and night clubs  is 
> nothing less than gestapo-like.  
>
>