Posted on 09/15/2014 9:32:57 AM PDT by Dallas59
Warner Bros. has filed a lawsuit against a small bar from Amityville, New York, for playing one of their songs without permission. The track in question is not a recent pop song, but the 80-year old love song "I Only Have Eyes for You" which first appeared in Warner's 1934 movie "Dames."
giacomoMany bars, pubs and restaurants like to entertain their guests with live music, with bands often playing covers of recent hits or golden oldies.
As with all music that’s performed in public, the bar owners are required to pay the royalties, even if there are just handful of listeners present.
Royalty collection agencies take this obligation very seriously and drive around the country visiting local bars and pubs to check whether they obey the law. Those who don’t usually get a bill in the mailbox, and if they refuse to pay up it gets worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at torrentfreak.com ...
I liked Art Garfunkle’s version of that song. Too bad they have no better way of making money these days.
In an honest court system, their extortion attempts would be laughed away like someone trying to patent "breathing".
The accounting is imperfect and complex, but it's not like there is none. They use a variety of monitoring, reporting, surveying, and statistical sampling.
The songs that Jerry Leiber wrote with Mike Stoller didn’t make him rich. He was coerced by the mob to signing them over for a dollar.
He made his money by buying the music publishing of old songs including Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
various unauthorized copies of the track are played hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube and elsewhere.
Google is too big to be sued plus the music and movie companies use then to promote the music. That bar is just small enough to throw a brick thru their window and demand the extortion money.
I thought that only applied to playing a recording.
I like that song. It wasn’t that old when I first heard it.
I thought ASCAP and BMI was whom people paid to play such songs.
Get-away Sticks!
Hah!
I’d play Thoroughgood’s “I Drink Alone” all day and send the check straight to him!
Art Garfunkle’s version was the first one I heard.
I only discovered the original a few weeks ago via YouTube (video with Dick Powell & Ruby Keeler). Would ASCAP sue me if I posted the link?
What if we change the words and make it a parody?
That is okay as I understand it
Small coffeehouse of 20 seats. Features local writers, poets etc. One of these outfits comes in, counts the chairs, and says they owe them annual $2K. Which coffeehouse spends for 1/4 of the year on coffee/supplies alone. They closed. Place no longer in business or a place to support the arts.
Comments on the posting, however range into anarchic— saying that intellectual property rights should be abolished. Very self serving for internet thieves.
Issue here is that WB would not go after google for this type of violation, but instead shake down a small business even as they cannot quantify the “damage” to the publisher, who is long dead and sold out to WB. Slick.
It goes to WB exec salaries and real estate. Too true. It is not about injury other than something they didn’t know they didn’t have.
In Article I, Section 6, Congress is authorized to:
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
Somehow, I don’t think the Founders envisioned century-old works, whose authors are long dead, being covered.
Bingo. Copyright terms are ridiculous these days.
The music still has value.
However, just publishing the words to a parody IS protected against payouts.
Someone famously sued Mad Magazine in the 50s or 60s because the parodies in the magazine said “to the tune of” but offered no musical charts. Mad/EC Comics won.
Until they don’t. This money is doled out through patronage and not any equitable system to the writers. They must be substantial successes in radio air play and/or song sales online or otherwise. It just isn’t equitable and this is how they get the money in the first place. Pretty safe to say that Jack’s in Amityville isn’t playing their songs.
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