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Paying to have open mike session
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Paying to have open mike session |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST,highlandman Date: 13 Sep 07 - 12:09 AM I gather further from reading here that there is some sort of means for the UK PRS to collect information on music played in small venues. If so, and if they *do* anything with that information, that is a move in the right direction. ASCAP and BMI, as far as I have been able to learn from their websites, care not a whit for small venues. They have no mechanism to accept returns from anything smaller than a stadium concert. So airplay really drives it all. Hence I shall stick by my rather dim view of the whole scam and sit on my two hundred and something bucks. Which is not to say that I don't respect copyright in my own activities, I just see no need to pay ASCAP/BMI good money for doing absolutely nothing on my behalf. -Glenn |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST,highlandman Date: 13 Sep 07 - 12:19 AM UK-ers, does your PRS also shake down -- er, request license fees from -- clubs where musicians play exclusively their own works? Where I live, most if not all open-mike sessions have become strictly singer-songwriter showcases: no covers or trad material allowed, period. This evidently shields the venue from paying license fees. But it sounds like this is no-go in the UK, do I understand correctly? -Glenn |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: treewind Date: 13 Sep 07 - 03:53 AM It's not true that "no covers or trad material allowed... shields the venue from paying license fees". In theory, by the PRS rules 1. licensing is applicable if there is any performance of music in public 2. A songwriter who is a PRS member can, when appropriate, collect royalties for a performance of his own songs, even when he's the performer. Indeed, many regularly gigging songwriters do this: it's a useful little income boost. However, I'm sure there are hundreds of clubs and sessions in the UK that the PRS simply doesn't know about. Either they are so small that they don't care, or the venue might be a pub that already has a PRS license for other reasons (background recorded music) but nobody bothers with filling PRS returns and no doubt most of the participants aren't members anyway and don't know anything about it. But being a "singer-songwriter showcase" doesn't, in itself, change anything. What does seem to apply in the UK, compared with the USA, is that the dividing line between what's big enough to matter and the "below the radar" small fry is a lot smaller than a stadium concert. Certainly provincial theatres, arts centres, hotels and bigger pubs that have music are covered. Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST,Fascinated(UK) Date: 13 Sep 07 - 05:38 AM Anahata.Thanks for responding to Highlander-as an unqualified funster I was going to bow out. So then: All UK venues pay PRS (on a sliding scale roughly related to the number of people likely be entertained) if they play music. This applies even in the unlikely situation where they only put on singer/songwriters.Should such a performer want royalties in addition to their venue fee they would have to join PRS (c.£100)and send them a list of on a standard form confident that eventually they will receive payment. I'm guessing that such a list would need to include all numbers-self-penned,trad/classical.arr.by self,other writers due for royalties. In the absence of such a list PRS will apportion payment according to playlists from media sources,who are obliged to provide them as part of their operating conditions. Incidentally-I don't read H.'s stadium comment literally.Rather a re-statement of the 'big name based on meia plays'situation. Regards F.(UK) |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 13 Sep 07 - 07:26 AM Do they have exemptions for churches? |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST,highlandman Date: 13 Sep 07 - 09:44 AM Anahata, thanks for the clarifications. In the US (excepting possibly where there are some local regulations) there is no license required for simply performing music of some kind, therefore a musician performing a piece which he/she owns is perfectly within the law, and ASCAP doesn't care about it. (There are other licenses and fees involved in operating public accommodations, but music performance per se is irrelevant to these.) The "stadium" concert was admittedly hyperbole (my wife tells me a million times a day to stop exaggerating). I'm not going to take the time to look it up, but if I recall correctly there was a seating number, perhaps 2000, referred to on the ASCAP site. A small stadium then. :-) The point remains that only the big guns (Sir Paul and Eddie Van H) are likely to ever earn back their membership fees from ASCAP. BMI is a little more mid-list friendly, but not much. McGrath, in US law churches are exempt from performance royalties if the music is used in a worship service. Concerts are not exempted, and if the service is recorded or broadcast, royalties apply. There is NO exemption from mechanicals if copies are made or the words are projected on a screen, which is unfortunately a common form of abuse in US churches. Cheers -Glenn |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: IanC Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:17 AM In the UK, churches don't have to pay to sing hymns as it's not regarded as a performance. They do, however, have to either buy the hymnals or pay for a licence if they make copies of the words or music. :-) |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 13 Sep 07 - 09:51 PM This summer, Italian friends, weekend gig, Italian restaurant...all improv/trio/quartet. Fee demanded for Sinatra songs. Owner refused. Owner says, "Let them take it out of my register - this is not Nazi Germany!!!!!"
Sincerely,
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST,Russ Date: 14 Sep 07 - 01:46 PM Tom Blish, Remember, although I am a traditional musician, I am neither a performer nor a composer. My question was asked out of real curiousity. I certainly agree that we cannot "rule out common law and ethics." But in the real world we cannot rule out consequences either. Remember also that I know nothing about the Sam Smith's affair. I'm a curious yank. That said, If I were a performer, and a significant number of possible venues were closed to me because of a decision made by Sam Smith management on the basis of PRS policy, I'd ask myself if I were better off after the event than before the event. I'd ask that question, but I don't know what my answer would be. Russ (Permanent GUEST and AMATEUR musician) |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: Backwoodsman Date: 17 Aug 08 - 06:46 AM Very enlightening. |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: Simon G Date: 17 Aug 08 - 08:45 AM It amazes me that Landlords can afford the £8.99 per performance event the PRS demand. Most Open Mics, Sessions Singarounds wouldn't justify this fee in terms of additional revenue to the Landlord -- which just indicates how PRS are abusing their monopoly position on behalf of their members. There is no annual fee option for pubs, they must pay per event. Even if only 1 person turns up a sing/plays in a singaround the fee is £8.99. Similarly if the session has 30 tunes but just one is an arrangement licenced by PRS the fees is £8.99. I suspect most pubs with sessions/singarounds are economic with the truth when they declare their use of PRS licensed music. Which is not ideal and will be disaster for live music when the PRS catch up with them. |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST Date: 17 Aug 08 - 10:30 AM It is all just a scam. It is nothing but corporate fat cats finding a way to cash in on the struggling artists talent. Having to pay to voice your emotions and ideas that is sickening. The "Industry" is such a repugnant aspect of music it makes me sick. Musicians catering to it makes me ever more sick. We have the voices and we have the talent by which they have nothing we don't want to give them. We are all turning into the monkey and they have the grind organ. Sickening!!!
Thanks. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: GUEST,Howard Jones Date: 18 Aug 08 - 08:31 AM Guest, even if if you are a "struggling artist" presumably you still pay for food and drink, pay for your instruments, pay for new strings etc? Or do you feel that because you're an "artist" you're entitled to steal them from others. I assume (I hope) the answer to these is "no". If you don't have the talent to write your own songs, why then do you feel it's right to steal the work of those who have that talent? If they're truly your own emotions and ideas which you're voicing, then there shouldn't be a problem - join the PRS and get back the royalties for your own songs. That's what this is about - if you're a performer you can get paid for performing, but a composer you can only get paid from royalties. It's the composers' rights which the PRS is set up to protect. The mechanisms of PRS may be crude and inefficient, and are frequently criticised, but no musician should criticise the principle of copyright. If you're a composer yourself, it's a way of getting paid for your work. If you're not, it helps to ensure that there are songs for you to perform. |
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Subject: RE: Paying to have open mike session From: Simon G Date: 19 Aug 08 - 04:51 AM I fully support composers getting paid for their work. To be truthful I owe them a lot more than the piddling little amounts that find their way through PRS for the privilege of singing their songs at singarounds from time to time. However the PRS price list is more than crude and inefficient. Pubs get the highest charges per capita in the price list, why? I suspect because they are easy targets for the PRS, the way they operate means that in most cases individual pubs are dealing with the licence and PRS can scare individual landlords into submission. The solution is simple, we all move to community halls, which do pay an low annual fee to PRS so the extra cost of your singaround/session/open mike is £0.00. |
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