Suffice to say that I have some experience with ASCAP - a good organization, to be sure, but the field reps can be a blinding pain in the ass. Your action? If it is the case that your only performers are singer-songwriter types who perform nothing but their own material, and, any recorded or taped music you may use at any time prior to or after the show to appease the audience is of those same folks - you can ignore them.

Why can you ignore them? It is their responsibility to prove that you are in violation of the copyright laws and that will take more than one monitoring of your shows followed by research on the music they heard, etc. Then they will have to come back to you citing the songs they heard that violate the laws; then, offer you another chance to pay the required fee.

The bottom line is that if they have to go into court to collect their money, they must cite violations of copyright laws where their artists are concerned or they have no case and it is a waste of their time.

I don't know anything about the bookstore in your town that went out of business, but I would suggest that ASCAP was not the cause of their demise. If the store was using recorded music or live music that falls under the jurisdiction of ASCAP then there is a fee involved, but it's not life threatening. ASCAP was probably one of several issues that bookstore was dealing with before they closed down and ASCAP became a convenient scapegoat; but, ASCAP is not in the business of putting businesses out of business.

Finally, you may also have to deal with BMI, SESAC, and any other new ones that I'm not familiar with that have cropped up in the last twenty-five years or so; but, the same rules apply. Good luck.