From Rob Drabkin on Fb, 06/05/15: mtvU – You rock! We are featured on the series ‘The Freshmen’ this week and need your help! Vote which of five videos goes into rotation. I highly recommend “Stay”!
link to vote: http://t.co/QdOezjtMS1
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ASCAP, BMI and SESAC Crackdown on Live Music Venues
Posted by & shared for Larry Murante who says: ASCAP, BMI and SESAC have halted live music in several small venues, restaurants, pubs, wine bars that I have played due to unreasonable fees. Most fees collected go to artists with the most record sales nationally. There is no benefit to local independent artists. All these fees do is make it harder for a small business with less than 50 seats to have live music. Yearly fees can be in the thousands for venues that have music a few days, or even one day a week.
Posted by June McHugh on Fb, 6/04/15: [This] is a different issue. All the PROs are now paying performers for their live performances of their music. It is the absurd licensing fees smaller venues, restaurants, pubs and wine bars are charged that are causing the problem. These fees need to be addressed and altered so that smaller venues can comply and keep live music going….
Posted by Cary Miller, Fb, 06/04/15: I have been with BMI since 2001. But no matter your affiliation in music licensing, there are limits to what is practical, or even good for music business and culture. Enforcing small venues to pay fees they cannot possibly cover while trying to survive financially is a damaging and dangerous prospect. If small venues slowly go the way of the dodo due to crippling licensing fees on the off chance that local artists might cover a popular song, you see the gestation point of what should be a haven for fostering creativity and the future of our musical culture stifled, broken, and stunted. Additionally, music as an art-form, separate from business, needs the interactive experience with an audience in order to evolve into great works that not only give us joy and comfort, but also allow us to reflect and look inward. I am tagging this post because I am begging anyone I have tagged to share and sign this petition. Don’t allow live music venues to suffer for trying to give young artists a place to find their voice
Support Independent Music; End Prohibitive Licensing Fees
Grant venues and cafes under 350 capacity exempt status from the prohibitive licensing fees levied by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for the public performance of copyrighted material.
Levying prohibitive licensing fees against small venues and cafes negatively impacts the local independent music community by reducing or in some cases eliminating the venues ability to host live music. These fees remove badly needed funds from the community, weaken the infrastructure for independent music and create an unfair and sometimes insurmountable strain on small venues whose music budgets are modest to begin with.
These fees adversely impact the independent musicians who ASCAP, BMI and SESAC represent by reducing the music budgets of small venues or in many cases eliminating the music programs from those venues entirely which is a devastating blow especially in small communities.
It is our assertion that venues of this size simply do not have the potential profit margin to sustain a thriving music program while paying these prohibitive fees and that those venue’s efforts to support local music on a grassroots level by paying musicians for their performance meets their obligation to songwriters and performers as well as the organizations that represent them.
Here is the Petition for you to sign:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/support-independent-music.fb47?source=s.icn.fb&r_by=13188605