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| As Terry Shiner Leads Group Doing 22 Pushups, Billy Thompson Is Thinking “I’ve Never Seen This at a Bluegrass Event” |
With Gary Rue and the Smoke Creek Rounders set to play some bluegrass music for us this past Saturday at Buzzy’s Country Store 22 March for Life Fundraiser, the issue of music performance rights crossed my mind. (This involves businesses such as mine having to pay music licensing fees to organizations that represent music artists and composers.) I wondered and worried about just what were my obligations as to having these licenses in place.
The reason why I was so concerned about this issue stemmed from a couple of conversations I have previously had with folks familiar with how this process works.
John Porter was in Buzzy’s Country Store recently and told me an interesting story from his days back in the early 90’s running Monk’s Inn. He noted that he was visited by some guy who said that he represented the music industry. The fella proceeded to tell John that because he (John) was having bands playing in Monk’s on Friday and Saturday nights, he owed $500 in music licensing fees which he (the music dude) was there to collect.
John told him that it would take him a couple days to come up with that kind of money. The guy told him that he had other stops to make and that he would be back in two days.
John then called Dickie Gatton, owner of the Brass Rail, and asked whether or not this was a legit request and should he pay this guy. Dickie told John to just go ahead and pay it. Dickie noted that he had been fighting the music licensing folks for years, even took them to court and had lost each time he contested paying the fee.
John noted that he ponied up the $500 when the music dude returned a few days later. As they got to talking, the music guy said that his job involved visiting different areas of the country and doing just what he did here in Southern Maryland – shake people down for royalties and fees owed to the music industry. He noted that it was lucrative enough that the music industry folks flew him around in a private jet to perform this task.
A second story on this matter was related to me a few years ago by one of our local beer distributor folks. He told me that a representative from one of the music publishing companies addressed them at one of their company staff meetings. The music rep asked that the beer sales reps and the beer truck drivers make note of bars and taverns that were featuring live music and report back to him so that he could then visit these places and ensure that the businesses were paying their music fees. My beer buddy said that as soon as the music rep left their meeting after talking to them, his boss took the floor and informed them “I let him have his say, but I just want you to know that we are NOT going to do what he’s asked us to do.” The boss went on to note “It’s called – don’t bite the hand that feeds you. We sell the bars and taverns beer and we don’t rat them out about having music on a Saturday night.”
Legally then, any business featuring live music is on the hook for paying these licensing fees to the music rights’ folks. Ask any bar owner with live music about it and you will immediately get a groan and a comment to the effect “Yeah, I have to pay those guys.”
The whole Performance Rights issue was recently addressed by Congress who actually did something for a change. In October 2018 Congress passed the Music Modernization Act designed to improve and simplify how musical rights and royalties are determined.
However, one of the unintended consequences of passing this bill has been that it may actually end up costing small businesses more in the long run (click here.) It has something to do with revamping the guidelines pertaining to “consent decrees” which were put in place years ago to try and keep costs down.
As a member of the American Beverage Licensees’ association, I recently received the following email from them giving business owners a heads up about possible coming changes.
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| https://p2a.co/tKFkiap |
So to get back to whether or not I had to obtain a music license for Gary and company to play a couple hours of bluegrass this past Saturday, I did find some explanations stating that music for charitable events and fundraisers was exempt from the licensing requirements. Also, I found a discussion about what music is or is not in the public domain. For songs that are in the public domain they too are exempt from the fees. Since most bluegrass and traditional music songs qualify as being in the public domain, fees are not assessed on them. To be honest however, I am still not sure what I should have or did not have to do with regards to the whole music licensing issue. Bottom line however, I don’t plan on having any live music again without making sure first that everything is cool with regards to music fees.
Here are the Smoke Creek Boys Billy, Troy Jones and Brian Deer at Ann Marie Gardens a few years back: