How Live Music Can Kill Your Business
Seems like an idea that most restaurants consider. Get some local bands to perform on a Friday night. Helps business, especially when things are a bit slow. That’s what Michael Dorr thought about when he started getting bands to play at Imbibe, the restaurant he owns up on Hawthorne.
But, acccording to a story from Oregon Live, the bands played some cover music fron Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Wonder. And it just so happened that, according to the Oregon Live story, “a rep from the American Society of Musicians and Publishers paid an unannounced visit to his restaurant one night and heard covers of the songs performed by local band “Black Notes.”
And now Dorr faces a federal lawsuit on charges of copyright infiringement. He’s facing thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees. He says it could bankrupt him. Looks like live music may be what kills his business.
This is copyright enforcement run amock. Suing a small reastaurant for a band that plays a few cover songs? How often does this happen?
Great idea, huh? Sue everyone in sight. Perfect. Eventually, perhaps, that will put an end to singing all together. Excellent. Copyright holders win! Culture is dead! Hooray for the new copyright order!
Oh, it’s a great idea. Imagine you have just written a Broadway musical. It opens to great reviews and several performances (say, a week or two) sell out.
But the sales peter out after three weeks, because your songs are being covered at little dinner theaters all over the country. All the work you put into writing those songs, staging the production, hiring the crew and actors, rehearsal, advertising…all has to be recouped from that first two weeks of sell-out performances. What do you suppose ticket prices would be for Broadway shows?
Or say you spend two years writing the great American novel. You find an agent and a publisher, spend a month or two negotiating a contract, another six months arguing with your editor about changes, and then it’s published. Photocopies appear a week later at half the price, you get no royalty and your publisher doesn’t recover the cost of printing and advertising.
I think copyright has been extended to ridiculous lengths (25 years seems plenty long to me for most things) but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless.
I believe most artists and/or venues take care of this with a payment to ASCAP, thereby receiving a license to perform all of the works in the ASCAP library.
This is hardly new, nor is it the end of the world.
see: http://www.ascap.com/licensing/licensingfaq.html
I think there is a lot to this story we don’t know. Had there been conversations with ASCAP? Were they repeat offenders? But it is interesting that ASCAP goes after such small players, though, I guess if you are a violator, you face the full consequence of the law. I wonder if this is over zealousness on the part of ASCAP or a restaurant owner simply cloaking himself in ignorance.
What this does illuminate, overall, is a copyright system that is overwhelmingly in favor of the powers that shape the law. Artist rights are usually what the big players state as the reason for their strategy in going after folks like the owner of Imbibe. Do musicians get compensated? I’d say no, often they do not. Further, music has always been shared. Actions such as these do nothing but create a chilling effect on what music we feel is ok to share with others.
It’s a huge concern. But no, it is not the end of the world. It’s just the beginning of an age where the richness of indie culture is degraded by corporate control and the willingness of government to cater to their interests. We need a better system. Dorr is contributing to the local economy. The band played some cover songs. What’s the impact? How much royalty is really at stake here versus what a local band provides our quality of life? How should we value the importance of a culturally rich community that is based upon the art of countless shared experiences?