Re: [Organizers] ASCAP approacheth

Hi Gary, ASCAP does this occasionally to dances. There was conversation about it on contrasf (sound forum) a few years ago. I'll forward you the emails about it off-list, but to summarize briefly for everybody who's interested: - Several dance organizations have had ASCAP contact them over the years asking for money - Very little music performed at contra dances is licensed by ASCAP (Larry Unger's tunes, a couple other ones, but that's it) - No dance has every paid ASCAP anything as far as I can tell Some solutions other dance organizations have taken: - Call ASCAP and talk about it, explain that you're a dance that makes little money, and then they drop it - Make it part of your contract with performers that they receive permission for any copyrighted material that they perform - Tell ASCAP that you don't generally have performers play copyrighted music and ask them to come and identify anything that they think they have a right to I do note that I am not positive that ASCAP has an exclusive license with any composers in the first place; if not, then the composer can still give permission to perform music, so they really won't be able to enforce anything. But I'm no expert in patent or copyright law. My recommendation would be to respond and tell them that your dance uses traditional tunes, not copyrighted material, and ask them to give specific examples if they think there are infringing things being played at your dances. My guess is, you won't hear back from them. -Dave On 4/2/12, Donald Perley <donperley(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- David Casserly (cell) 781 258-2761