2 Apr
2012
2 Apr
'12
noon
Fellow organizers,
I'm writing as a board member of the Santa Barbara Country Dance Society.
Our Treasurer received a formal letter from ASCAP, trolling (?) for money.
The subject ASCAP uses is "First Offer."
Has anyone else received this and how did you deal with it? And if no one
else has, why are we so special?
2 Apr
2 Apr
12:21 p.m.
Maybe you're "special" because you're close enough to ASCAP's
offices
that some employee saw a notice for your dance.
If you have public performances of recorded music in copyright, then you owe.
If you have purely live music of traditional tunes (out of copyright)
then you're in the clear.
If you have live bands playing stuff still in copyright, then someone
owes but I'm not sure if that's you or the band, and I'm not sure if
ASCAP is the one to collect.
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Gary Shapiro
<sharedweight-garyes(a)snkmail.com> wrote:
Fellow organizers,
I'm writing as a board member of the Santa Barbara Country Dance Society.
Our Treasurer received a formal letter from ASCAP, trolling (?) for money.
The subject ASCAP uses is "First Offer."
Has anyone else received this and how did you deal with it? And if no one
else has, why are we so special?
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list
Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers
12:40 p.m.
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:
Maybe you're "special" because
you're close enough to ASCAP's offices
that some employee saw a notice for your dance.
If you have public performances of recorded music in copyright, then you
owe.
If you have purely live music of traditional tunes (out of copyright)
then you're in the clear.
If you have live bands playing stuff still in copyright, then someone
owes but I'm not sure if that's you or the band, and I'm not sure if
ASCAP is the one to collect.
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Gary Shapiro
<sharedweight-garyes(a)snkmail.com> wrote:
--
David Casserly
(cell) 781 258-2761
Fellow organizers,
I'm writing as a board member of the Santa Barbara Country Dance Society.
Our Treasurer received a formal letter from ASCAP, trolling (?) for money.
The subject ASCAP uses is "First Offer."
Has anyone else received this and how did you deal with it? And if no one
else has, why are we so special?
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list
Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list
Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers
12:46 p.m.
Dave Casserly wrote:
No dance has ever paid ASCAP anything as far as I can tell
While not a regular dance, the NEFFA Festival does pay for an ASCAP
license. They were approached by ASCAP several years ago, and because
people do perform songs at the festival that ASCAP enforces copyrights
for (ex: the Beatles Singalong) they decided to pay up.
(This is second hand, via a current NEFFA board member.)
(Thanks for the summary; it's helpful. Just following up on a minor
point.)
Jeff
3 Apr
3 Apr
10:47 p.m.
Hi Gary,
NEFFA has been paying ASCAP $150 per year for a number of years now. We
were first contacted about 10 years ago. We actually did a survey of both
our annual Festival and our dance series, and made them an offer of
something like $25/yr. Unfortunately, we are a relatively large target,
compared to a small dance series.
NEFFA was recently contacted by a representative of a small community
dance in Maine, asking for our advice. ASCAP had gone after the town who
owns the hall that they rented. The town, in turn, came after the dance
organizer.
I would modify Dave's advice a bit and recommend that you do everything
you can to get yourself onto their list of organizations that are just too
small to go after. I would be careful about telling them to come identify
what they think they have a right to, for fear of appearing to be hiding
something. I don't know how they 'audit' any organization, but you
probably don't want them on your case. They have been known to demand
immediate payment from coffeehouses and similar venues for payments in
arrears - amounts in the range of $1000.
Not trying to scare you here, just letting you know what you are up
against. Feel free to contact me - I can tell you more about how we dealt
with them.
Best regards,
Bill
--
Bill Cowie, President
New England Folk Festival Association
www.neffa.org
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:
Maybe you're "special" because
you're close enough to ASCAP's offices
that some employee saw a notice for your dance.
If you have public performances of recorded music in copyright, then you
owe.
If you have purely live music of traditional tunes (out of copyright)
then you're in the clear.
If you have live bands playing stuff still in copyright, then someone
owes but I'm not sure if that's you or the band, and I'm not sure if
ASCAP is the one to collect.
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Gary Shapiro
<sharedweight-garyes(a)snkmail.com> wrote:
--
David Casserly
(cell) 781 258-2761
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list
Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers
Fellow organizers,
I'm writing as a board member of the Santa Barbara Country Dance
Society.
Our Treasurer received a formal letter from ASCAP, trolling (?) for
money.
The subject ASCAP uses is "First Offer."
Has anyone else received this and how did you deal with it? And if no
one
else has, why are we so special?
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list
Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list
Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers
4616
days inactive
4618
days old
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4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Bill Cowie -
Dave Casserly -
Donald Perley -
Gary Shapiro -
Jeff Kaufman