It depends on where you are in the world.
From your address it looks like Canada, and they've got different
copyright laws
In the States there are collection societies, Harry Fox & ASCAP and
I'm sure they do something similar to the UK
In the UK if you are a place like a bar, a hairdressors, a clothing
store, a sports stadium, or anyplace else that plays music, you take
out a license with PRS (Performance Rights Society), pay an annual
fee based on what your business is and at the end of the year the
money gets distsributed to artists.
More about this and lots of music business inneresting stuff can be foung on
http://www.prs.co.uk If, for example, you want to use someones music
on your website, you need to ask permission. The PRS controls the
right to perform and broadcast music in public. If you live in
England, check next time you go into a restaurant that plays music if
they have a PRS sticker in their window.
The promoters arent required to pay any royalty, but in theory the venue is.
If you want to see when someone violates a copyright, or how that's
defined http://www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk/legal/
The obvious question arises, what about all those illegal warehouse
parties, etc? I attended a couple of workshops back in the mid-90s
by the PRS and MCPS (cause they collect royalties based on sales of
records). I cant tell you how many breakbeat/dj producers were in
there hopping mad because Phil Collins was getting all the PRS money
from radio play, and they werent getting any.
The penny dropped when they realised that in order to get paid,
they'd have to register their tracks with MCPS at the pressing plant
and work legit venues that were paying PRS licenses. Yes the fees
vary according to what the business is as well.
Another interesting place to have a look is http://www.bpi.co.uk - the BPI site
in their legal section.
At 7:47 pm -0400 19/5/02, Stimp wrote:
>Hope that everyone is enjoying their weekend. My buddies were over
>to watch the hockey game, and a discussion came up about whether a
>sports arena has to pay for the right to play the music that they
>play during the game. My buddy swears up and down that the people
>who own the arena don't have to pay royalties to whoever owns the
>rights to the song, while I'm pretty sure that they do. They argue
>that a band like Queen gets paid nothing for having "We will Rock
>You" played at every sporting event (assuming that Queen still owns
>the rights to the song), while I think they do. They didn't believe
>me, so I'm hoping that you guys could help settle this.
>
> Actually, maybe we could take it a little further. I know that
>many of you are Dj's so maybe you could answer this for me as well.
>When spinning for a big event like a rave, are the promoters of the
>event required to pay royalties for the music used during their
>event? In this case, I would assume that the answer would be no,
>given that it would probably be quite difficult to monitor. In any
>case, the output of anyone in the know would be greatly
>appreciated.
>
>Thanx,
>
>Stimp
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