BMI and ASCAP Are Taking Lawsuits Too Far
by Victoria Jeffrey
The issues between organizations like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC and business owners playing music or having performances of songs within the catalogs of these organizations look like they’re bubbling over into a big mess. I believe that if you are going to use copyrighted music than by law you should pay the license. It’s as simple as that, however unfair some of those laws are. However, the tactics used by groups like ASCAP leave many wondering if copyright law and the laws revolving around royalties need to be seriously examined. I’m among those that feel that some radical change in how we look at copyright and royalties needs to be initiated!
Lawsuits are being filed even against clubs, bars and coffee houses that don’t play copyrighted music, without any thought to fairness or justice. These organizations collect royalties and give them to multi-million dollar artists and songwriters. Or spend the money on lavish parties for members and employees. Small working artists who are members rarely see anything of these royalties collected. It leads me to wonder: should content creators, more specifically artists, receive royalties years after they’ve created content? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It seems to me that many of the organizations put in place originally to help musicians no longer do that. At least not work-a-day musicians. In fact, when you look at how many black artists and country artists that never received royalties for their work so many decades ago I wonder how long it’s been that these organizations haven’t done what they claim to do for artists? ASCAP, BMI, SESAC? I’m looking at you!
The entertainment industry is the only industry where an artist continues to get paid many years after they’ve created their content. But is this fair? Centuries ago artists got paid like everyone else - by the job. Why should they get royalties many years later? I’ve read, commented and argued on quite a few blogs and forums on this issue and I’m finding that there are a lot of people who agree with me on this. A regular complaint that comes up is that these organizations collect royalties from coffee houses, bars, clubs and other venues but a lot of musicians never see the money. As mentioned before, they even attack and intimidate people who play or perform only original, independent music; music not in their catalogs, demanding exorbitant fines and license fees. I know a racket when I smell one and I don’t care what any industry tool has to say about it. It’s wrong!
The way I see it, this makes them no different from organizations like the RIAA. I’ve seen the arguments for royalties and some are convincing. When these groups first started out they did good by musicians and songwriters, but that was then and this is now. Times have changed. These same organizations that take care of this sort of thing have become overly aggressive and greedy. Many artists signed with them have noted how the money collected from bars, clubs and such is spent on lavish parties at the “non-profit organization” which cuts into payments for the artists they claim to support. That’s IF they get the money at all! Some get paid and some don’t.
I’m not a big fan of most of the cartel music out there anyway but why are they even allowed to attack venues that play public domain or non-copyrighted music is played? In those cases who are they collecting fees for? Racket! I ask again, why should musicians continue to receive money for work they did years ago? Sure, people benefit from it and enhance their own business from it but software does the same thing. So do a lot of other things. I’ll bet that if those same musicians had to pay the makers of their instruments every time they picked up an instrument to play it or pay an engineer every time they used a piece of software to enhance the songs on an album in the studio I bet they wouldn’t like that too much would they? I’m not saying people shouldn’t get paid for their work but some of this is out of hand! It was only last year that Carlos Gardel’s work - a tango singer who died in the 1930’s - was put into the public domain. I can understand receiving royalties for twenty or even thirty years but fifty or more years is too long. Who’s benefiting after forty or fifty years? Do they have the ethical right to continue to benefit for that long? It’s about time the laws were changed.
Some people object to comparing creative work to other kinds of work - as if the work others do is less important or noble. They feel that creative work deserves royalties because it’s, well creative! A snobbish argument that holds no water. I’m a creative person (I’m a writer and poet) I also used to be a musician though I no longer play violin. My point is that I don’t expect or demand that my work continue to make me money many years after I’ve created it. If it does, then that’s fine, I won’t object to it. But I’m not interested in suing anyone who wants to use it for free to enhance their own projects, just so long as they give proper credit. It’s time the laws were changed and that groups like ASCAP who make much of their money by filing lawsuits over copyrighted and non-copyrighted material find their ethical roots. Or disappear.
About the Author
Victoria Jeffrey is a writer and she has worked as a freelance graphic designer. She writes primarily about music industry news, film, technology and tech news. You can see more of her work at:
http://www.helium.com/user/show/178352
http://regularjill.blogspot.com