Killing their own young
The music industry has reached bizarro territory - killing its own young in the quest to ensure that all music fits into their box. Have a look at this from Joi Ito:
"I thought it was a new kind of fraud," said Naoki Kasugai, who runs Daytrip, a nightclub that offers live music in Nagoya. He received a letter from JASRAC in summer 2003 along with an invoice for a monthly charge of 28,350 yen in copyright fees, covering the entire time his bar has been open since 1997. It totaled a whopping 2.32 million yen.
Kasugai was shocked and puzzled. He had never heard from JASRAC before. He figured someone was trying to con him.
But after receiving a second invoice from JASRAC, he called to find out what was going on. A JASRAC official came by in person to explain: "The bands you hire have likely played covers of songs by other composers. We want you to pay the copyright fees on those songs."
"How many cover songs does this account for?" asked Kasugai.
"We don't know how many copyrighted songs were played here," the official replied. "So we are not charging for each of them. Instead, we are charging on a monthly basis."
Now stop and consider this for a moment. Let's say that bands playing there did, in fact, play cover songs. Well then - the audience heard a bunch of music which they might then be interested in buying. Instead, the morons from the music industry would like to ensure that only original music gets played (because that's what bar owners would do, rather than have to pay an extra fee). What' the end result of that? A less diverse range of music heard by the audience, which will result in fewer experimental sales.
The music industry has moved beyond protecting itself, and straight on to suicidal behavior.
Comments
Common in the US
[] November 23, 2004 7:53:46.943
It's common in the US for bars and nightclubs to pay a monthly fee for this. I think they pay ASCAP.
They even hit up gyms for money, because the gyms play music during workout sessions.
ASCAP/BMI
[Ian Bicking] November 23, 2004 11:59:21.639
In some ways ASCAP and BMI are more fair than the recording industry, as royalties are supposed to go more directly to musicians. Musicians are payed based on a survey system, though I've read claims that it's very corrupt, with preferred musicians getting most of the money and out-of-favor musicians getting nothing. It covers all public performance, including radio stations.
I know in the US it's considered a bonus if your band plays original music, because then the bar or club doesn't have to pay royalties. So there must be some accounting system. ASCAP also has informants who check up on the accuracy of the bars' self-reporting. How exactly the system works, I'm not sure; maybe JASRAC doesn't have the same infrastructure, and does its billing in a more crude manner ("likely played covers").