ASCAP does behave in a boorish manner at times, but there are ways to scoot around them. They have a right, indeed, to collect royalties on songs that are ASCAP registered (and the songs thus registered are legion). It is my understanding that if an establishment hires musicians to perform in order to attract customers, and those musicians play licensed material, then the establishment owes royalties. Case in point: the local bluegrass jam in our neck of the woods was asked to pony up $35 a night for ASCAP coffers. If the owner of the establishment ceased to advertise the jam, ASCAP would have been out of luck. Guerilla music, that is music sung spontaneously by folks in a public venue, and unsolicited by the owners of that venue, is considered free speech.

In the town of Annapolis, Md., a particular establishment known and loved for its live music, was eventually shut down by ASCAP. We continued singing there anyway, organized and publicized the events amongst ourselves (funny how it always seemed to happen on the third Thursday every month). If anyone called the venue to ask about it, the caller was told that no such thing happened--certainly not authorized by or under the auspices of the establishment. If a group of people saunter into a bar and decide to start singing, who can stop them?

These are unplugged events, and organizing them as hit-and-run sing outs is fun, rewarding, and the bars/coffeehouses are generally quite appreciative of the unsolicited business these events generate.