No, the venue is always responsible or in the case of a rental venue, like Carnegie Hall every year, where I pay a $20 fee to them in my rental agreement for the contribution to their blanket license. I wonder if Patti actually received her 15 cents from our recent tribute show where we played 20 songs and the entire Horses record....:)
I'm no lawyer, but I do have a response to the PROs. Why don't you offer to set up an audio livestream of the shows at your clubs (I know, I know, there are issues with that. We're just talking here) and invite them to evaluate them in real time, song by song, and identify each song that is a cover of a song by one of their composers (A bot could be set up to do this very easily).
You'll gladly pay a mutually agreed-upon fee (up to, say, several pennies) per song that you both agree is a cover. After all, compared to when these blanket fees were dreamed up, the technology makes it so easy to do this now, what with micro-payments and all. Payments of 80%+ of the fee collected can be made to the composer that instant.
Do I think they would agree to this? Of course not, but when they say no, it would show them to be the thugs that they are. Maybe they know that it's only a matter of time until a competitor comes along and offers exactly this service, and takes every composer's business, and buries BMI, ASCAP, & SESAC, once and for all. If so, they are figuring they'll grab all the cash they can in the meantime.
An unnamed person read this rant and had this response :
If they track all the plays that means a centralized output which has all the DRM (digital rights management) for all tracks of all the PROS's (which might mean an antitrust concern) and then mete it out per play..
So who do you think is going to own that service--- a bunch of independent venues making it freely available?
I dealt with this for years, both as an artist and a music supervisor. Completely agree with all of this. It took me over a year to collect on a tv show I had the them song on and that played weekly on a major network. Finally they paid me a fraction of what I should have received.
...does the band/musician playing (Patti smith) cover tunes have any liability retroactively if that apple app reports that I've perforned a cover (Horses) at The Winery on a tribute night?
No, the venue is always responsible or in the case of a rental venue, like Carnegie Hall every year, where I pay a $20 fee to them in my rental agreement for the contribution to their blanket license. I wonder if Patti actually received her 15 cents from our recent tribute show where we played 20 songs and the entire Horses record....:)
I'm no lawyer, but I do have a response to the PROs. Why don't you offer to set up an audio livestream of the shows at your clubs (I know, I know, there are issues with that. We're just talking here) and invite them to evaluate them in real time, song by song, and identify each song that is a cover of a song by one of their composers (A bot could be set up to do this very easily).
You'll gladly pay a mutually agreed-upon fee (up to, say, several pennies) per song that you both agree is a cover. After all, compared to when these blanket fees were dreamed up, the technology makes it so easy to do this now, what with micro-payments and all. Payments of 80%+ of the fee collected can be made to the composer that instant.
Do I think they would agree to this? Of course not, but when they say no, it would show them to be the thugs that they are. Maybe they know that it's only a matter of time until a competitor comes along and offers exactly this service, and takes every composer's business, and buries BMI, ASCAP, & SESAC, once and for all. If so, they are figuring they'll grab all the cash they can in the meantime.
An unnamed person read this rant and had this response :
If they track all the plays that means a centralized output which has all the DRM (digital rights management) for all tracks of all the PROS's (which might mean an antitrust concern) and then mete it out per play..
So who do you think is going to own that service--- a bunch of independent venues making it freely available?
What does the guy pay for booze every year?
This is disgusting. Mafia. Hate them. It would take a big player to make the change because…litigation. 😔
I dealt with this for years, both as an artist and a music supervisor. Completely agree with all of this. It took me over a year to collect on a tv show I had the them song on and that played weekly on a major network. Finally they paid me a fraction of what I should have received.
...does the band/musician playing (Patti smith) cover tunes have any liability retroactively if that apple app reports that I've perforned a cover (Horses) at The Winery on a tribute night?
I don’t think so. I believe it is always on the venue or event host.