Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
The Dues
“We’re gonna play a cover [song]. If you are from ASCAP or BMI, you can fuck off.” That’s how Jackson Milgaten, singer/guitarist/bassist with Vision of a Dying World, introduced a Daniel Johnston song recently at the Ken Club.
ASCAP/BMI are the two major nonprofit groups that collect performance royalties from bars and nightclubs to pay songwriters. It’s not that Milgaten doesn’t respect the rights of songwriters; as the owner of local label Single Screen Records (the Sess, Red Feathers, Powerchords), he secures permission to use copyrighted songs on his CDs. For instance, he says he paid a $150 licensing fee so the Sess could record a song by a ’60s garage band called the Remains.
Milgaten’s issue with ASCAP/BMI has to do with the clearinghouses going after small bars that feature bands which occasionally throw in a cover song.
“Most of the larger venues, like the Belly Up, Casbah, and Beauty Bar, pay their [ASCAP/BMI] fees,” says Milgaten. “Besides, who cares if someone else plays your music in some small bar? Nobody is making any great money out here.”
Bar owners usually pay $2000 to $7500 a year to ASCAP/BMI for the rights to have bands perform cover songs. The fee is determined by the size of the venue and the number of nights music is featured. If the businesses don’t comply, they could be sued.
BMI spokesman Jerry Bailey says the statutory damages range from $750 to $30,000 per song. “And if it’s willful infringement, it could be up to $150,000 per song.… We don’t often lose [court] cases.” Bailey says BMI only goes after the business – not the artists who play the copyrighted songs.
BMI licenses about 600,000 U.S. bars and restaurants. Bailey says that only about 3 percent of clearinghouse income comes from licensing live-music venues; most of its income comes from radio and TV. But if a venue refuses to pay its license, BMI will send a “researcher” who will sit in the bar and write down the songs that are played and record them with a small recorder.
Milgaten says he blurted out the F-word out of frustration: he says he heard that ASCAP/BMI representatives recently paid visits to local nightspots. Bailey would not confirm the veracity of what Milgaten heard.
Here's something you might be interested in.
The Dues
The Dues
“We’re gonna play a cover [song]. If you are from ASCAP or BMI, you can fuck off.” That’s how Jackson Milgaten, singer/guitarist/bassist with Vision of a Dying World, introduced a Daniel Johnston song recently at the Ken Club.
ASCAP/BMI are the two major nonprofit groups that collect performance royalties from bars and nightclubs to pay songwriters. It’s not that Milgaten doesn’t respect the rights of songwriters; as the owner of local label Single Screen Records (the Sess, Red Feathers, Powerchords), he secures permission to use copyrighted songs on his CDs. For instance, he says he paid a $150 licensing fee so the Sess could record a song by a ’60s garage band called the Remains.
Milgaten’s issue with ASCAP/BMI has to do with the clearinghouses going after small bars that feature bands which occasionally throw in a cover song.
“Most of the larger venues, like the Belly Up, Casbah, and Beauty Bar, pay their [ASCAP/BMI] fees,” says Milgaten. “Besides, who cares if someone else plays your music in some small bar? Nobody is making any great money out here.”
Bar owners usually pay $2000 to $7500 a year to ASCAP/BMI for the rights to have bands perform cover songs. The fee is determined by the size of the venue and the number of nights music is featured. If the businesses don’t comply, they could be sued.
BMI spokesman Jerry Bailey says the statutory damages range from $750 to $30,000 per song. “And if it’s willful infringement, it could be up to $150,000 per song.… We don’t often lose [court] cases.” Bailey says BMI only goes after the business – not the artists who play the copyrighted songs.
BMI licenses about 600,000 U.S. bars and restaurants. Bailey says that only about 3 percent of clearinghouse income comes from licensing live-music venues; most of its income comes from radio and TV. But if a venue refuses to pay its license, BMI will send a “researcher” who will sit in the bar and write down the songs that are played and record them with a small recorder.
Milgaten says he blurted out the F-word out of frustration: he says he heard that ASCAP/BMI representatives recently paid visits to local nightspots. Bailey would not confirm the veracity of what Milgaten heard.
Comments