Re: Music lic fees for stores

["\"Mike Thomas\"" <nostatic@earthlink.net>]

I took my son to see "A Bug's Life" while visiting relatives in Philadelphia this
week, and I noticed that the theater played a music service which is specific to
movie theaters.  I heard a lot of "emerging" artists like Kurt Whalum and Emilia
along with some holiday tunes and new Garth Brooks.  The presentation was
designed to expose music to the audiences as opposed to being "background." They
even announced the name of the CD's the songs were from.  It seems to me that if
this service is trying to promote music sales, than it should be free from
ASCAP/BMI licencing.

Personally, the unions should thank their lucky stars that radio is out there
playing their product.  Without radio or other music delivery services, music
would not be exposed to the public and thus would not be purchased.  I don't buy
the "background music" or "making money off their product" arguments. Even at the
softest AC stations, people call to find out the title/artist/album information
of specific songs with the intent to purchase them.  They should just be happy to
make their money on music purchases and leave distribution alone.  As far as
shaking down mom and pop stores for royalty fees, I'm suprised that groups like
the Small Business Administration haven't done more to lobby Congress to close
this silly copyright/licensing loophole.

Mike Thomas
WXLO & Premiere Radio Networks

Brian Vita wrote:

> My clients are movie theatres where the music is played as "audio chewing
> gum" to amuse the audience and mask conversations before the beginning of
> the movie.  ASCAP will go into a number of different theatre locations and
> charge a wildly differing licensing fee regardless of the fact that the
> theatres may have near identical seating capacities and show schedules.
> The fees that I have heard ranged from $20 to $1000 apparently based on
> nothing more than what they thought that could get out of the mark, er,
> customer.
>

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