Music licensing companies come calling for royalties: Local venues, artists miffed
Six months after raising the curtain on their gourmet coffee shop in the beachside Indian Harbour Place shopping center, Laurie and Jim Hall decided to offer live music on Friday and Saturday nights. The performers, normally duos, mainly covered songs written and made famous by other musicians. There was no cover charge, no pay for the musicians, no limit to how long patrons could sit on a couch with their coffee, playing chess and enjoying the music. No problem. Then a few months later, music industry giant ASCAP started calling and sending letters saying East Coast Coffee & Tea was in violation of copyright laws. The fee to continue the music was $400 a year.
OK, I understand that pirating music is wrong. I get that. Stealing is stealing. At what point, though, does the music industry’s alphabet soup (RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, ad infinitum, ad nauseum) stop trying to squeeze the last drop of blood from small businessmen simply try to make ends meet? If an artist is performing music for no pay, and if the venue- in this case, a coffeeshop- charges no admission, then who’s being hurt? Since no money is changing hands, how is this scenario any different from, say, a book club getting together on Sunday nights to discuss the latest reading material?
While I can understand the industry’s point of view, and I recognize that they have the legal right to pursue payment for the performance of copyrighted material, surely there’s a point where reasonableness must prevail, no? Actually, no. Alphabetville apparently will not be satiated until they have bled every last penny from the carcass of every last hole-in-the-wall coffee shop simply trying to give aspiring musicians an opportunity to ply their trade.
If the coffee shop’s open-mike night was a money-making venture, sure, I could understand the industry’s wanting their piece of the pie. This clearly is not the case in this situation, however. The industry, in their zeal to bleed every last farthing from every last possible source, ends up looking like Simon Legree. Apparently it makes more sense to squeeze a barely-viable business to the point where it’s no longer IN business. Nice going, eh?
