Re: Music piped to gas pumps

[Tony Abruzzese <abruzzese@med-biochem.bu.edu>]

John Bolduc wrote:

> Greetings
>
> It seems that more and more gasoline stations are wiring their pump
> area
> with speakers and music. I think this is great because to seems to
> greatly
> discourage those drivers with LOUD car radios to keep them cranked up
> while
> pumping gas, much to the regret of many other customers.
>
> While most stations that do this seem to play a muzak type of format,
> one
> station I frequenct in North Andover has been playing WZID 95.7
> Manchester
> NH for the past year.
>
> Is this legal / ethical?  I thought there was sort of ASCAP / BMI etc
> concern over playing an actual radio station like this.
>
> John
>
> ps It's the Route 114 Gulf station on the No. Andover / LAwrence line,
> just
> south of -495.

Strangely enough, someone called the Loren & Wally show with a similar
question a couple of weeks ago.

He was a restaurant owner and told them that he had been contacted by
someone demanding a fee/royalties for playing music in his
establishment, in his case a radio station.  Another listener (if I
remember correctly, he was a lawyer) called in to say that as long as it
was a radio station and it was the full broadcast, the restauranteur was
in the clear w/regard to royalties because the radio station has already
paid the royalties.

Under copyright & fair use, (my interpretation) piping a radio station's
broadcast through a restaurant's (or gas station's) sound system (or
intercom as at my station in Billerica) would be allowed because the
action would "expand the market (audience)" by providing exposure of the
broadcast (the music, the personalities, and the PAID advertisements) to
people who otherwise might not  hear it, without having a "negative
impact" on the broadcast's copyright holder (the station).

As to the number of speakers/volume/etc., that may be the realm of the
city or town licensing board. I worked in a restaurant in Boston during
my college years and the company needed an Entertainment License, which
was conspicuously displayed with all of the other licenses and permits,
in order to pipe in Muzak.


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Tony Abruzzese                e-mail: abruzzese@med-biochem.bu.edu
Network Administrator                      Biochemistry Department
            Boston University School of Medicine
Telephone:617.638.5092                            Fax:617.638.5339
******************************************************************



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