mr dave

Alright so... I'll shred a 5 year old article a bit...

So a couple in Florida start having shows in their coffee shop. OK. There's no mention on whether or not the couple bothered with addressing the legalities in regards to becoming a performing venue or if they just decided to plug in a small PA into the corner of their cafe.

$400 a year to address the issue is ALL of $33 a month, or a whopping $1.10 a day. OH NO!!! They'd have to pay back the same amount as what, three 'gourmet' coffees back to a label every weekend? If they can't afford that then their venture into using live music as a method of attracting and increasing their business is a massive failure.

Now the example of trying to pull copyright money due to the televised broadcast of a football game is kind of insane. But, did the location bother getting the licenses necessary for public broadcast? Again, not specified in this rather biased article.

From what I understand performers themselves have to pay a fee ANY time they want to play a cover when in Europe and I've heard of some acts dropping hit covers from their sets to avoid that cost. Can anyone confirm if this is still the case?

The biggest complaint seems to be 'BOO HOO! the big label is being mean to all these wonderful start up artists who need to rely on other people's material to display their talents'. OK. What about all the legitimate start up musicians or those no longer soaking up the limelight but who were actually talented enough to both perform AND create the original material? Do they not deserve to get paid for their work?

I also don't think Urban's example of books holds water either. Really though, if you blatantly copied from books you'd get charged with plagiarism. There's also a very clear reason for citing sources and the methodology in doing so. Libraries are also established and have the licenses necessary to provide the service of 'free' books to their members. It's not at all the same as some coffee shop owners trying to make an extra buck on the side by having live acts playing under the table every weekend.

The examples of Prince, Radiohead, or Nine Inch Nails using the mainstream press to further their own careers independently of major label marketing is also a huge fallacy. If it weren't for the fact that their careers were very well established by their original association to those major labels I really doubt their attempts to market themselves independently wouldn't have amounted to a tenth of the success they actually achieved.

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