BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated), a performing rights outfit demonstrates how it can convince the owners of restaurants, clubs and all other establishments where copyrighted tracks are played or performed.

Broadcast Music Incorporated can win a title of the most ruthless outfit, with its licensing executive Devon Baker, illustrating how far BMI can go to make sure all the venues where copyrighted works are performed pay the mandatory licensing fee.

For example, they demand restaurants to pay a fee of $5.45 for live music, $3.15 for enhanced record music like Karaoke, $2.65 for plain recorded music and $1.70 for TV or radio. The rates are set per occupant and are calculated on the basis of the maximum occupancy of the location, even if it doesn�t in fact get filled. However, the top limit of the amount the performing rights outfit is allowed to charge is $9,000 per venue per year.

Earlier, BMI had 14 branches all over the country working towards enforcing licensing fees, but later it has downsized and switched to use the Internet and other means of communication to tell establishments of the country that they have to pay a fee to get a permission to perform copyrighted music. Of course, the web has made the outfit�s life easier because businesses usually advertise online.

The licensing executive admits their job is quite a tough one, as the business owners don�t like them (surprise, surprise) and even threaten their lives. However, the group�s Senior VP explains that their work is not intended to prevent the owners from the use of copyrighted tracks, but rather ensure they pay what performers are rightfully owed.

A bright example of how far BMI can go to control venues all over the globe is its Blue Arrow system. It has a database of 500 TB of music able to recognize 8 million tracks and is used to monitor websites, TV and radio stations all over the world. The system can identify if it�s a copyrighted track being played as fast as in 2 seconds.

This approach can pose a serious risk for everyone in terms of how and when people can use copyrighted music. Some critics fear that soon we will find ourselves in a world where every single use of the copyrighted music is charged for. BMI was among those arguing that a ringtone, played in public every single time a user receives an incoming call, was a public performance and had to be paid for.



------------------
Bo pen nyang.

This is nothing new ... restaurants, clubs, etc having been paying such fees forever ... it's how we musicians can go into a venue and play popular music - as opposed to our own originals - without having to worry about copyrights ...
t.

Taike is right...these guys are BRUTAL, sometimes, as are the goons from ASCAP.

I lost a gig I had been on for three years a while back because the bar downstairs from this restaurant told BMI that the restaurant had live music. I told them that they had better pay up years before, but they waited until contacted. i wanted to move on, and used the new fee as a justification for leaving. the place wanted a 1 year contract before they were willing to pay, and I wanted to move.

I have no problem with the theory of collecting funds for the performance of copyrighted music. It's the strong-arm tactics they use and the general nature of the kind of people they hire.

Russ