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Musicians sue South Beach (Nightclub sued for playing music)
Amarillo Globe-News ^ | 3.12.03 | Jim McBride

Posted on 03/12/2003 10:48:04 AM PST by mhking

Musicians sue South Beach

By JIM McBRIDE
jmcbride@amarillonet.com

Attorneys representing singer-songwriters Madonna and Lenny Kravitz are suing the owner of an Amarillo nightclub, alleging the club infringed on their federal copyrights by playing their songs without authorization.

The copyright infringement suit was filed in federal court March 4 against Scott Williams Elkins and Pickerington Bicycle Club, which operates South Beach, 2600 Linda Circle. The suit says the club is owned by Elkins.

The Globe-News was unable to reach South Beach representatives for comment on the suit Tuesday.

According to the suit, the various plaintiffs secured exclusive rights and privileges to copyrights for various songs.

The suit claims the club infringed on the plaintiffs' copyrights by giving public performances of copyrighted songs on the club premises.

The suit claims the defendants have not sought or obtained a license agreement from the plaintiffs or the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, known as ASCAP, a performing rights licensing organization that the plaintiffs belong to.

Plaintiffs claim ASCAP representatives contacted the defendants and sent numerous letters informing them of their liability under federal copyright law and that the defendants have continued to perform copyrighted music without permission during business hours.

Songs named in the lawsuit include "Justify My Love," written by Madonna Ciccone and Lenny Kravitz; "Erotica," written by Madonna and Shep Pettibone; "Nasty," written by James Harris III and Terry Lewis; and "Get the Party Started," written by Linda Perry.

Plaintiffs are seeking between $750 and $30,000 in damages for each of the five counts of copyright infringement named in the suit.

The suit also asks that the club be barred and permanently restrained from publicly performing the songs named in the suit.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: mdm
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To: Ramius
Any artist or band that wants to distribute their music to the whole planet no longer needs an industry group or a record company to do it.

Do you have any idea how many "artists" there are distributing their music over the internet already with nary a single one of them seeing sales in excess of $10,000 a year. Split that between a 5 piece band and you've got little more than weekend beer money.

The sad fact is, most wannabe musicians suck big time. I can't tell you how many artists I've seen who press up 1,000 CDs, give away about 300, sell maybe 50, and end up using the rest as coasters.

Your disturbing anti-capitalist rant notwithstanding, truly talented artists could not achieve millions in sales without the record companies. There may be Todd Rundgren or Janis Ian who make a living at it, but even they are only selling about 3,000 CDs a year.

81 posted on 03/12/2003 8:36:25 PM PST by tdadams
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To: tdadams
Are you actually trying to tell me that the "copyright" for much of the popular music is actually held by the artist? Not the record company?
82 posted on 03/12/2003 8:37:45 PM PST by Ramius
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To: tdadams; HairOfTheDog
Your disturbing anti-capitalist rant notwithstanding...

Boy, oh boy... do you not know me.

83 posted on 03/12/2003 8:39:04 PM PST by Ramius
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To: tdadams
...truly talented artists could not achieve millions in sales without the record companies.

The race is not always to the swift, but that's the way to bet.

84 posted on 03/12/2003 8:42:03 PM PST by Ramius
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To: Ramius
The copyright is held by the songwriter.
85 posted on 03/12/2003 8:44:05 PM PST by tdadams
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To: Ramius
Maybe you don't know yourself. Your posts smack of this "big-music is bad, they exploit artists, music should be free" gobbledygook I hear so often today that sounds like it's straight out of the Che Guevara school of anti-capitalism.
86 posted on 03/12/2003 8:47:18 PM PST by tdadams
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To: Ramius
Heh... I get accused of being a Socialist or something at least once per week. Don't take it too hard.

You guys must be off topic from the article...

I *think* what the artists *still* need the record labels for is the (over-rated) marketing.... not to the public, or to the record stores, but to the radio stations that get the music heard so people want to buy it. The labels send massive gifts, inducements (money) to the stations for pushing their artists.

It doesn't cost much to make the disks anymore, but an independent artist can't get played on a big scale without big friends that can push them to 1500 stations.
87 posted on 03/12/2003 8:48:35 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: tdadams
Oh relax.
88 posted on 03/12/2003 8:49:59 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: HairOfTheDog
What makes you think I'm not relaxed? I'm stating my case, nothing more nothing less.
89 posted on 03/12/2003 8:52:21 PM PST by tdadams
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To: Ramius
What is it music night around here?

Music companies fear new 100-hour discs

And How bout them Dixie Chicks!

90 posted on 03/12/2003 9:08:23 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: Ramius
Artists don't need them any more. THAT is what they are really afraid of. Any artist or band that wants to distribute their music to the whole planet no longer needs an industry group or a record company to do it.

Sorry, but songwriters need groups like this more than ever.

First, yes, you can now independently distribute your music to the world if you wish. But how exactly will you make a living that way, much less make enough to pay off the investment in college (do you realize that many composers and songwriters actually have degrees in music? No, really!) or the decades of practice to learn the craft in the first place.

Second, with music so easy to steal, and such a casual attitude toward stealing music to use in your own businesses, ASCAP is definitely desired by musicians. That's why musicians join -- it is member-supported, you know....

91 posted on 03/12/2003 9:08:25 PM PST by Anchoragite
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To: tdadams
Maybe you don't know yourself. Your posts smack of this "big-music is bad, they exploit artists, music should be free" gobbledygook I hear so often today that sounds like it's straight out of the Che Guevara school of anti-capitalism.

No... that's really not me. You'll not find a purer capitalist than me. I don't have any illusions that music (or software, for that matter) should be free.

I'm all for people being paid fairly for the fruits of their labors, at prices that the market will bear. I'm *all* for it. No worries here.

There's a lot about all this "piracy" sort of stuff that's been bothering me for a while, and I've had trouble putting my finger on it. On the one hand, people shouldn't steal the work of others. That's a given. On the other hand, there's something happening here that doesn't fit into the model real well. How many times can I charge people for the same work and have it still be right? It's the basic business model that just isn't making any sense.

In other words, I pay a carpenter to build a door in my house. I don't *license* the door from the carpenter, so that he gets paid for how many times the door gets used every month. Most people get paid once for their labor, but artists are in this odd category of people that think they should get paid over and over for the same work.

For example, a hypothetical question: The bar plays the song on the PA system for everybody in the bar to hear. ASCAP has a problem with this. What if everyone in the bar already owns a legal CD of the song in question? Have the bar owner and all the people in the bar satisfied their obligation to pay the artist for the right to listen to the song?

I'm honestly not trying to be merely argumentative here. I think there are issues that are different for this sort of industry that are different from other kinds of "products and services".

92 posted on 03/12/2003 9:08:32 PM PST by Ramius
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To: Anchoragite
First, yes, you can now independently distribute your music to the world if you wish. But how exactly will you make a living that way...

I don't disagree. There's lots of people trying to figure out how to make a living off the Internet and widely distributable content. That's exactly the problem. The problem is we have a business model that is still trying to work in an age where they can no longer control the medium of exchange. That's just plain doomed, for right or wrong. If they're going to survive, somehow the model needs to change.

Here's another way to look at it: Maybe due to distribution necessities, and other market and industry forces of the past, musicicians have been able to take advantage of these forces and leverage their labor into monumentally outrageous sums of money that was merely the luck of the draw. A few managed to work this system into many millions of dollars, and *good* for them. They were in the right place at the right time. No blood, no foul.

But is the multimillion dollar payment really a *right*? Well... no... only in so much as the market is willing to bear the price. Is Eminem really so wonderfully talented that his labors should result in a life of wealth for producing one measly little album? Say what you like... but the guy is no Mozart.

I'm not even trying to say that good marketing shouldn't be allowed to substitute for talent every now and then. That's not what I'm all about. What I'm trying to say is this: Maybe some artists are only now finding out what their product is worth.

93 posted on 03/12/2003 9:26:47 PM PST by Ramius
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To: Ramius
but artists are in this odd category of people that think they should get paid over and over for the same work.

You aren't buying a door. You are performing a piece of someone else's work for a period of time, for a given audience.

Artists don't necessarily want to be paid over and over again for the same work; however the economic value of an artist's work can only be established by how many people are exposed to the performance. Therefore, the only fair way to reward a songwriter is to pay him/her a little every time the song is performed under certain circumstances. The more performances, the more important it must be, and thus, more reward to the people who made it happen.... theoretically.

94 posted on 03/12/2003 9:31:20 PM PST by Anchoragite
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To: HairOfTheDog; tdadams
but an independent artist can't get played on a big scale without big friends that can push them to 1500 stations.

Okey doke... but that gets kinda wierd in the *next* generation of distribution, when "radio stations" aren't even the way people listen to music very much. Imagine a car radio that can listen to any Internet source on the fly, without commercials.

This stuff is only beginning. Like I tried to say at the start... I'm not arguing right or wrong, or what people have a right to, either the artist or the consumer. It's the basic business model that is breaking, like candlemakers at the advent of electric light.

Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger.

95 posted on 03/12/2003 9:38:38 PM PST by Ramius
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To: HairOfTheDog
And How bout them Dixie Chicks!

What are Dixie Chicks? :-P

96 posted on 03/12/2003 9:41:44 PM PST by Ramius
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To: Ramius
But is the multimillion dollar payment really a *right*? Well... no... only in so much as the market is willing to bear the price. Is Eminem really so wonderfully talented that his labors should result in a life of wealth for producing one measly little album?

Eminem will likely not make millions from his ASCAP rights. He will make his millions from the sales and marketing of his image and recordings. That's an RIAA issue, far removed from what ASCAP is doing.

Hearing names like Madonna, Kravitz, or Eminem, in which all three both perform and write something similar to music, kind of confuses the issue. Imagine all those John/Jane Doe songwriters you've never heard of -- the ones who write the songs performed by people surgically altered to be more beautiful. Those composers/publishers/producers are the people ASCAP represents. If you happen to be a performer as well, more power to you. But ASCAP is there to collect the royalties for the people who created the performance pieces in the first place.

97 posted on 03/12/2003 9:44:13 PM PST by Anchoragite
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To: SamAdams76
and the FRENCH own a large percentage of the record labels that the RIAA is kneecapping folks for....

Riaa, the bag men for sheryl crow, dixie chicks and the vivendi french....

98 posted on 03/12/2003 9:50:19 PM PST by Robert_Paulson2 (Pappy always said "If you don't understand something, kill it... it's safer that way..." or similar.)
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To: Ramius
Personna non grata now....

Too bad... Heh. I liked "goodbye Earl"

Dixie Chicks Lyrics: Goodbye Earl

99 posted on 03/12/2003 9:52:02 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: Anchoragite
Just looking for information--If I have breakfast at a resturant and they have the daily newspaper available for the customers to take and read, is the resturant in violation of the newspaper's copyright? I'm not sure if you have been to McDonalds or Taco Bell lately but they each have special racks within the resturant which hold a copy of the daily paper for anyone to peruse, with out purchasing the paper. Those who do read the paper usually put it back in the special rack for some other customer to read (for free).
100 posted on 03/12/2003 9:52:36 PM PST by kmiller1k
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