[BC] ASCAP, was question for the braintrust

[Douglas B. Pritchett]

ASCAP also monitors businesses who play  music on hold. Most times it's 
an easy listening radio station, but in the 80's businesses began using 
produced on hold music with promotional messages interspersed. The 
company I worked for was one of the largest on-hold providers in the 
country servicing over 2,000 locations nationwide. At some point,  we 
began getting calls from customers who had been threatened/billed by 
ASCAP for the music on hold. We quickly sent every customer a letter 
noting that all music licensing fees had been paid by us and they were 
exempt. Now, in examining  those bills,  ASCAP was claiming that all of 
the musical compositions were "theirs". We found this strange, in that 
some of the music was "ours" and was handled by BMI. Our BMI rep was not 
amused. It was interesting to see ASCAP and BMI go after each other for 
a change.

-- 
Douglas B. Pritchett
Fort Wayne, IN
dpritchett1 at comcast.net


 
The much maligned Rich Wood wrote:

>> I had friends who were listeners for BMI and ASCAP. They'd sit in a 
>> restaurant or bar that wasn't a subscriber and document the music 
>> they were playing. A few days later a representative of the 
>> organization would pay a visit. Pay the license fee or see us in court.
>>
>> Rich
>>
>> Rich Wood
>> Rich Wood Multimedia
>> Phone: 413-303-9084
>> FAX: 413-480-0010
>>
>>
>