[BC] ASCAP and BMI and Rights

[David Lawrence]

On 1/21/06 2:23 PM, one WFIFeng at aol.com <WFIFeng at aol.com> wrote:

 >> A few days later a representative of the
 >>  organization would pay a visit.
 >
 > Guido.
 >
 >> Pay the license fee or see us in court.
 >
 > Yup. Sounds like Guido... "Pay up, or we burn dis place down, and 
you go live
 > wit da fishes!"

Really? That's what you got out of that? How about enforcement of the
copyright law without the use of police or the courts? The rights
organizations have every right to do what Rich described, and if you're a
restaurant or bar, you have to follow the law - pay your yearly performance
fees or stop playing music on speakers your customers can hear.

This isn't about strong-arming someone - it's about methodically and
accurately gathering information on what the storefront is doing with
copyrighted music, using that information to prepare and present a clear and
accurate bill and having the storefront pay reasonable fees yearly for the
public performance of music that helps to draw and keep an audience.
.
What would you have them do otherwise? What would you do? The law is clear,
and the legal assignment of rights and enforcement of those rights to ASCAP,
BMI and SESAC here in the US is also just as clear.

And please, please don't say you were joking. Because if you were, it
sounded an awful lot like it was at the expense of Italian American and the
stereotypes they live with.

David
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