Good tidings we bring...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Schism sent me a link to this story, knowing it would incite me to rant, while small flecks of spittle formed in the corners of my mouth, and my eyes rolled back in my head. (I know that’s why all of you visit this site; that, and gear pr0n.)
However, I think you’ll be surprised at how I’m going to take something like this. First, you’ll need to read the article, then come back here. [Go ahead. I’ll wait.]
BoingBoing is, by far, the worst offender, but the Interweb At Large simply doesn’t understand what performing rights societies are all about. To most of the self-styled intelligentsia, ASCAP == RIAA. This is fueled by various reports you see that read like the following: “John Doe has a really cool little store, that sells cool things we like, and he recently got a visit from [performing rights society], saying that since he plays cool music in his cool store, thus contributing to the overall vibe of coolness, he has to cough up $300 a year or some such. The OUTRAGE!!!”
I’ll explain it in simple terms for those of you (and I’m talking to you, Cory Doctorow) that don’t have the faintest idea what the fuck you’re talking about. It’s like this: I’m a musician that (barely) eeks out a living writing songs. It is a proven fact that people buy more shit in a store if there’s music playing. They’re playing my music so people will buy more shit in the store. Their profits go up as a result. I am (justly) entitled to a piece of that, because I helped sell more cheap-ass Chinese clothing.
That, in a nutshell, is what performance rights societies are all about. They make sure that if music is used to sell a product, the musician gets a piece of the action. Nightclubs bitch the most about this, because they have to pay the largest licenses. But you have to realize that a nightclub is simply a fiscal mechanism for turning beer in to money. It has nothing to do with music at all. Customers come to hear the music, and during the course of this, buy beer. In almost every nightclub in the country, the entertainment, be it Superstar DJ Blowme or Bob’s Local Cover Band, is a loss-leader for the alcohol sales.
Which brings us to this fellow. (Or bloke, rather. He is British, after all.) Now, if there was a loophole by which a store that sold musical instruments didn’t have to pay a license, well, then all Wal-Mart would have to do would be to have a musical instrument section. Sorry, dude, but it’s for the greater good. Pay your fucking hundred and fifty quid, and get off your high horse.
24 comments
did you read the article? it's not about music being played on a stereo in the store... it's about people picking up guitars and playing "known riffs".
...When he said they did, they told him that if anyone played a riff – an identifiable piece of music – he was in breach of copyright and was breaking the law. "They said it constituted a public performance!" he gasped.
Technically speaking, there's no difference, and the PRS is absolutely correct, aside from the fact that every statement in the article is hearsay, and the article was written (as usual) by someone that did no research to speak of and doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.
What I imagine happened is that PRS said "well, you're a music store of so many square feet. This is what music stores of that size pay." The guy, who has no fucking idea what is going on, says "why?" The person at PRS then gives a terrible explaination of why. The guy takes it the wrong way (understandably) and sees his reporter friend at the pub that night, and rants.
I tend to look a little sideways at performing rights societies like PRS, MCPS, SESAC, and BMI that are for-profit companies, I'll say that much. ASCAP is a non-profit, which is as it should be.
Ironically, someone that sells musical instruments to musicians who are the benificiaries of PRS/MCPS should have a fucking clue about the System. I have no sympathy.
-CR
WalMart already does sell musical instruments. Well, if you can call the First Act crap an instrument.
I'm sure every coffeehouse whines this way when BMI shows up to a crowded, caffinated open mic.
So do you think that the asshole hip hopper bouncin down the street in his convertible with two 24" sub woofers in his trunk can constitute as a public performance ? I think 50cent should get some money for that. :)
Heh. You're funny.
In any case, I can't speak for PRS/BMI/SESAC, but as far as ASCAP goes, if you are actually out working your shit, and you still aren't getting paid, you're able to get a cut of the pool at the end of the year. (ASCAP is a non-profit; thus they have to give away anything they don't distribute every year.) I did this several times when I was younger and didn't have the income I do now. I believe the cutoff is $5000 a year for writer members. One year I got $3700, but most years it was a few hundred dollars. There's a form in Playback every year. All you have to do is fill it out, and provide some sort of proof that your music was performed during the year.
So, yeah, if you are a struggling artist, and can actually prove that you're actually struggling, then you do get a cut of that money. All you have to do is ask for it. This entire thread is proving the article linked in the original post, and my comments thereof: people don't take the time to educate themselves on what performing rights societies do before jumping to conclusions.
-CR
--the small artist generally does not receive a portion of that money.--
Everytime I hear that justification it makes me shudder. Stealing is stealing, even it's from a big entity.
personally , I think they should jack up the fees so much no restaurant, coffee shop, bar, club will play recorded music and be forced to have live musicians playing their own music if they want music. I hate dining out and having to hear top pop picks playing loudly over their shitty speaker systems. I boycott it.
On the other hand I am a small business owner, a glass blowing school, where students and glass artist regularly play their music (whether on a IPOD or cd ) over our PA system. We do this as a courtesy to our students, teachers, staff, and artists.
I have seen many a times when someone would bring in a cd of a regularly unheard of musician, someone else in the glass studio hears this and go buys the album . Chris, you being one of those musicians;-)
I do disagree that the owner should be forced to pay for his teenage customers' shitty renditions of "Smoke on the Water", on the grounds that they're not "performances" unless they unintentionally become one; the owner is providing a venue to test equipment rather than to perform. It would be like a bar having to pay royalties if a drunken bunch of college kids started singing "More Than a Feeling". The problem is, as Chris says, that that's not what he's being asked to pay for; it's the music he plays in the background. He (and the writer of the piece) completely misinterpreted what he was paying for and that's why he's kicking up shit about it.
Say, though, a store owner simply left the radio on the oldies station as background music, rather than playing a CD. Does he have to pay for that too, or is he covered by the royalties the radio station is already paying?
I dunno, its kind of a wierd deal just cos its music (I wonder if actors get paid royalties from Best Buy because they put a DVD in to show off the plasma TV's...does anybody know?). If there's a standard fee for performance royalties that's cool (and in this guy's case, that's what it sounds like). I think the square footage should count too (so the big dumb stores like guitar center are held accountable for subjecting me to their shitty client base guitarists). But all in all, I can't imagine this is as big a deal as the guy is making it out to be...its not like they are asking for the known world...its 150 quid...pay it and move on!
If a store owner plays music at all, the big three are eventually gonna come knocking, at least in America.
The comment from gashoagie got me thinking, though. While music does increase productivity in the workplace, I don't believe that shops that aren't open to the public have to pay. I've never heard of one that did.
A bit of a funny story here. When you're at a certain level of performing live, where your shows are mostly bought by big promoters and put in to theatres, you (the artist) are usually charged the fees for both ASCAP and BMI, persuant to what the club has to pay on any given night. This will show up in the expense report the club gives you at settlement time. We would strenuously argue the BMI fee, saying that we were an ASCAP band, playing all ASCAP music, and thus shouldn't be held responsible for the club's agreement with another performing rights society. Sometimes we'd get away with it; usually, not.
On one tour, we had it in the contract that we would pay no fees to ASCAP _or_ BMI, as we were an ASCAP band and thus paying ourselves, which was stupid, and we didn't have anything to do with BMI. As a result, most of the promoters took out the line item, and just lowered our guarantee accordingly. You get it coming and going.
-CR
Wow, this is an interesting issue, Chris. People do seem to be confusing several things here. So is the "riff performing" at music stores a red-herring? and that the license is to cover all music (performed or on the PA) played in the store?
And what's the answer to whether the shop-owner playing the radio ONLY has to pay for the license? What about Muzak?
A retail store that plays music has to pay, whether it is Muzak, CDs, iPod, radio, hurdi-gurdi, whatever.
And yes, the "performance" aspect is a red herring, which is what I've been trying to say since the beginning of this thread. There's only one retail license, to the best of my knowledge. Music instrument stores get a discount, because they're part of the business, but they still have to pay.
-CR
Ok, thanks for explaining it, i am pretty ignorant about these issues. i admit to having fears of government overreach but the more i understand it, the more i see that the licensing at least tries to compensate the artists for the use of their works. And these businesses ARE using the music to make more money.
wait, i still don't think i get it. the problem is about the PA in the store, not the random guys riffing? or not?
I still dont understand how you can claim that "Technically speaking, there's no difference" between situation
a) a performer playing songs to an audience and
b) a bunch of people NOT playing entire songs but bits and pieces of songs they happen to be able to play and which help them evaluating the instrument, and who do NOT play their bits+pieces to an audience that is standing there and listening but who play to themselves on headphones or to their buddy who came with them.
How can you make a shop owner responsible for what riffs come up in customers minds? he's not earning any money with what comes up in his customers minds, unless there was sign outside saying "Every day great cacophony of known and unknown riffs, a really noisy mess, 5$ admission". does the cacophony help him sell guitars because people enjoy listening to it? does it help him sell even more guitars when poeple discern "Smoke on the water"? no, this is nonsense. neither the owner nor the customers earn money playing some well known riffs because the shop situation is not a performance situation. if, on the other other hand, the owner would have regular demo concerts, with a guy playing famous tracks on the new guitar model, both the owner and the guitar manufacturer would obviously profit from the situation, which clearly is a performance situation. No doubt he should have to pay in that case.
But if latter is not the the case i would suggest "the greater good" here is not the enforcement of an orwellian copyright absurdity but the freedom of individual non-profit expression - for the customers. because what is really disturbing is not that the owner has to pay a minor amount of money, but that copyright enforcing organisations seem to creep up really close to every individual allowing or forbidding things which are not related to business structures anymore and restrict people on a very personal level. If, for now, the shop owner has to pay the fee for the indivudual freedom of his customers, its merely grotesque. It is what might come afterwards which i find really scary, its 2 steps before universal thought-police and goes along the lines of new DRM methods and proposed anti OpenSource legislation in the EC.
i guess if i was caught humming a well-known song to a friend in a metro station, i should have to burn, shouldnt i? ah no, wait, its the metrostation company that would have have to pay, since by providing a situation for me where i can hum something to my friend this will make me a loyal customer of theirs and bring them more profit. yes, this makes perfect sense.
If every other music store in UK (and world generally) pays, then he should pay too. End of story really...
You need to get a grip laddie. If you think that struggling artists are going to benefit when tiny music stores get squeezed then you're a fool.
It's a standard and ugly practice across all large, money driven organisations. When you need more cash, you don't think that maybe the big guys are overpaid or the system is wrong.. instead you squeeze the small guy.. the easiest target with no leverage.. who just has to pay up or go out of business. Ultimately, it leads to boring homogeneity, and a tiny group of people getting all the benefit while the people who just about make a living (who are doing it for the love of it) get forced out.
PRS is, IMO, a good idea. But somebody testing an instrument does not constitute a public performance. In the same way I don't have to pay the PRS if I play someone a track when they come round to my house. Like "ax" said above, it's a completely different kettle of fish to playing it over the stereo in Walmart.
"You need to get a grip laddie. If you think that struggling artists are going to benefit when tiny music stores get squeezed then you're a fool."
I hope you're not talking to me. If you think the various performing rights organizations "squeeze the small guy," you have no idea of whence you speak. The entire point of these organizations is to help the littlest guy of all, one who routinely gets fucked from all directions.
That said, you're saying this guy should be exempt because, although he almost certainly plays every Van Halen record on the Peavy "DJ To Go" rig in the back of the store like every other music store, you can't hear it because the kid in the front is doing his best "Smells Like Teen Spirit." From the top again, the article is at the root about miscommunication. It has nothing to do with the license. This is a story about someone at PRS not explaining what the license is about correctly, or this guy not understanding what was explained. This has nothing to do with the license itself, which is perfectly reasonable.
And anyways, there is no difference, at the root of it. A public performance is a public performance. Because it's bad doesn't change the fact. Because one particular kind of shop happens to have a _lot_ of really bad public performances, it needs to be exempted? How on earth do you (a) judge what's bad, and (b) limit that to one particular entity? Music stores are exempt, because they have lots of bad public performances of "Stairway" and "Jump." Okay. So Guitar Center, which _blares_ shitty nü-metal every minute its 100+ stores are open is exempt? Or Sam Ash?
Or do you quantify it this way: if everyone within earshot generally agrees that what is performed is "bad," then the store doesn't have to pay. In that case, every coffee shop that has acoustic music is off the hook. In short, there's no way to separate it out with one simple statement, or at least one that can be justified to larger stores that have to actually pay large licenses, as opposed to the ~$300 this guy is supposed to pay. At least he's not in America, where he'd have SESAC and BMI climbing his ballsack, in addition to ASCAP.
-CR
Complaining about taxes very British.
I was going to say... If this guy wanted to bitch about something, the 17.5% VAT would be a much better target.
-CR
One thing to keep in mind about PR organizations and the collection of money in regards music used in general sorts of spaces like retail: the small artist generally does not receive a portion of that money.
The reason being is that since those sorts of venues do not keep playlists (unless they use some sort of environmental music service) the money is split up and dispersed according to who are the most popular artists at the given time. In other words, if a store plays pop and rock music and they don't use a service, the license fee they pay will be divided according to what is currently riding the charts as it is assumed that this is the music being played in the venue.
The rich get richer. Otherwise, those of us who are affiliated with some PRS should be receiving some cheque for some amount from all the royalties collected from general use venues.
I think this issue illustrates something larger: these practices (and the fess required) currently seem fairly reasonable. But what happens when the fees increase? In this case, will it start to squeeze out the small music instrument retailer in favour of some superstore who can easily pay the PRS fee? I hope not.
I agree with you that, if scottish music instrument seller is playing CDs in his store he probably needs to cough up his dough to PRS.
But that is not the case here. In this case (assuming the journalist got the story right), he is being asked to cough up because his CUSTOMERS are playing stuff on the instruments in the store.
So he should pay Led Zeppelin (in effect) because a teenage customer decides to butcher "Stairway To Heaven" on a 200.00 starter guitar?
I guess the "No Stairway" signs need to be updated to "No Music".
I guess I can screw my political enemies by walking into their offices, tooting "Happy Birthday" on a harmonica, and then demanding that they pay ASCAP immediately or face a lawsuit. And then sue them when they throw me out of their office...
to CR, ok, what you are complaining about is that the musicshop guy should pay for music performed by his stereo, right? neither the article, nor your initial post and first reply seemed to go in that direction. instead the message was any occurence of whatever sound in whatever situation is a reason to let shopowners pay ... which is what i was writing against. if its only about the stereo, its a simple story: he indeed should have to pay.
Just left a comment where I pointed out that the article you link to talks about one thing and then you're arguing about something else.. but it seems to have disappeared. Odd eh? I'll try again.
1) Paying to play music in a store like everyone else = OK.
2) Paying because people might play recognisable riffs whilst testing guitars = Not OK.
In the comments you seem to be talking about (1). But in the original article you don't make that clear at all.
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