Coffee Shop Owners: You Might Want To Get Your Customers To Turn Off Their MP3 Ringtones

Music licensing companies like ASCAP and BMI have taken on high-profile clients who play music in their establishments without paying a fee recently, but don’t think they’ve forgotten about you, small business owner! If you have any sort of music playing around your establishment, regardless of medium, you could be seeing fines and lawsuits in your future.

It makes sense that businesses would need to pay for the right to have music in their establishment; after all, the estate of Jim Croce deserves to get paid when Rich butchers “Time in a Bottle” at Common Grounds’ open-mic Wednesdays. It’s only fair. However, even when establishments try to do the right thing and pay for a license, the payouts may only be beginning:

Laurie and Jim Hall decided to offer live music on Friday and Saturday nights.

The performers…mainly covered songs written and made famous by other musicians. There was no cover charge, no pay for the musicians…

Then a few months later, music industry giant ASCAP started calling and sending letters saying East Coast Coffee & Tea was in violation of copyright laws. The fee to continue the music was $400 a year.

“At the time, the shop was losing money, so we had to break it up into payments,” said Laurie Hall. But the Halls paid, and the music continued.

Six months later, other music copyright companies began calling the Halls and demanding money. Most days there would be three or four phone calls from each company, Hall said. Finally, unable to afford the fees, she had to call most of her musicians — those who did not play original music — and tell them they would not be allowed to continue performing….

[Lou] Andrus, the owner of Lou’s Blues, said he has had many run-ins with the copyright companies over the years.

“It started 15 years ago when I had a guy come out to our other place, Cantina dos Amigos, and play Mexican music on his guitar on the patio,” Andrus said. “They came after me for money. Are they really sending royalty checks to the songwriter in Mexico?”

Andrus said he pays BMI and ASCAP about $3,000 a year but is ignoring the smaller companies that seek royalties from him.

“There are so many damned companies you don’t know who to pay,” he said. “One guy called and said I had to pay him if I played any gospel music at all. It’s really a mess.”

While there certainly needs to be a system in which songwriters are paid for the public performance of their work, the system falls apart with the increasingly large number of rights-management companies and the commission-based sales people those companies hire to collect the license fees for music that might or might not be played at any given time. What’s the solution? For many businesses, it’s easiest to just stop having music, or purchase commercial satellite radio to avoid the various companies with their hands out. However, just ridding your establishment of performers might not be enough.

And in no way do the songs have to be performed live, or even on the radio, to elicit calls for royalties.

Andrus said a friend of his who owned a restaurant that did not feature music was contacted by a company looking to charge him because it owned the rights to a Hank Williams Jr. song, “Are You Ready for Some Football?” The song preceded every “Monday Night Football” telecast, which the restaurant carried on its televisions.

He said his friend simply chose to turn the volume down when the song came on.

Music licensing companies come calling for royalties [Florida Today]