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A couple of weeks ago I’d commented on ASCAP going after AT&T in attempts to slap an additional performance fee on ringtone downloads that already remit higher than average rates to songwriters and publishers in comparison to full song purchases. More recently I’ve been hearing from colleagues and small business employees that ASCAP is upping the aggressive tactics and targeting any venue that provides a physical performance space that performs covers, whether they’re hit songs or not. Disturbing as it already sounds I’m wondering if I work for an industry based in Texas.

To prevent this from sounding like a total smear campaign against ASCAPthough I do need to make light of some confusion. To be fair, my relationships with some folks who had worked at the PRO’s have mentioned shop owners confusing their policing tactics with the likes of the RIAA. Remember those lawsuits against grandmothers? The PRO’s charge venues based on a variety of methods including by the number of customers that frequent the businesses and the square footage of their sites. Unfortunately there is little transparency to those fees and the multiple threats received by the shops for not obtaining licenses from the multiple agencies (the PRO’s deal with song publishing and the RIAA deal with master recordings) only muddles any comprehension of fee inconsistencies per the respective stores.

Nontheless a blanket license covering performance fees on the publishing side per venue seems easy enough to obtain. The “chump change” at approximately $100-$400 más o menos for the brick and mortar site is annually I presume way less than the 10% of overall revenue YouTube has to pay. Also if a registered ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC writer were to play their own songs at the site without a license that technically is still infringement. So both the artist and the venue need to be vigilant.

Shop owners though should especially be educated on these issues because they obviously realize the value of music to create a commercial ambience. Therefore it would probably serve ASCAP better to take some time to teach businesses about copyright law rather than defer to scare tactics which gets them to be perceived as desperate for cash or even worse as vilified cops (this reminds of the line “Fuck off Mr. Taxman!’ in Stranger Than Fiction).

From my point of view as an indie artist, being able to play covers is a platform to gain recognition and increased exposure if that’s what I’d wanted. But if enforced pay-to-play laws choke the budgets out of mom ‘n’ pop shops, this then could be another avenue of constriction I’d have to face when trying to promote myself. Maybe $100-$400 for one shop rather than a Starsucks, I mean Starbucks franchise is a lot of money. If so then indie artists will have to find another route elsewhere in the “underground” and if they want to reach for any kind of “upper ground.”

As a so-called champion of songs and songwriters’ rights, ASCAP may want to get a philosophy check and host a debate about song royalty collections versus song proliferation. Ironically I haven’t heard anything like this from the other PRO’s. And I even feel relieved that I had chosen my alliance carefully with as a registered songwriter with BMI. Undeniably though it’s a tough job for the administrative middlemen to balance copyright culture with music as culture. But to teach or even implement talent scouting among these businesses could counter-balance the “attacks.” Anything positive would be smart even if it’s just a goodwill gesture.

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