music licensing

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

ESPN won’t be the first to take issue with BMI, Broadcast Music, Inc., over their music licensing and royalty collection terms for public performance of music in their artist catalogs.  BMI is one of two major professional organizations managing performance royalty rates for musicians and their works, the other being ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers with catalogs of thousands of artists and songs.  Think you can simply play your iTunes downloaded music in your workplace without a license?  Think again.  We have addressed this topic before as many a business owners has received the unpleasant demand letter for licensing fees under either BMI, ASCAP, or the smaller performance rights organization called SESAC, originally the “Society of European Stage Authors and Composers”.  Now, however, ESPN is forging a battle in the music industry competition referred to as rate-setting and contending that BMI’s rates are disproportionate to EPSN’s payments to performers and publishers and are, therefore, unreasonable.   In fact, ESPN has asked the Court to weigh in on this one.

Continue reading “ESPN Seeks Determination of the Fair Rate for Music Licensing” »

Donald Trump campaigning in New Hampshire. Photo by Marc Nozell used under CC-by-2.0 license.

This month we tackle on our blog and at our talks in Blacksburg, Roanoke, and Richmond the topic of media licensing in public places.  And in this post, Donald Trump, the brash presidential candidate, real estate magnate, and apparent music thief, or so says Adele.  Is she right?

Full disclosure: I strongly dislike Donald Trump and I love Adele.  My son sings along to “Hello” whenever it comes on the radio.  I have an Amazon mix that has “Hello” from Adele followed by “Hello” from Lionel Richie.  Which one is better?  Hard to say, since they’re both awesome.

Continue reading “Adele to Donald Trump: Hello, Can You Hear Me?” »