NCVLA is coming to a law firm near you: NCVLA sponsors in-house CLE for lawyers
The North Carolina Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts is sponsoring continuing legal education credit for lawyers across the state in all areas of entertainment or art related law topics including intellectual property, contracts, corporate law, and conflict of interest ethics. NCVLA will pay all state bar fees and provide lunch. The cost is $50 per attorney per hour of CLE. Call or e-mail today to set up your in-house CLE.
NCVLA spotlight: musical licensing fees for corporate clients
Corporate clients who play music in their establishments may be needlessly paying licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI for playing that music. An exemption to the Copyright Act allows some business owners a way of avoiding licensing fees through simple modifications to their existing sound systems. A full article regarding this subject is printed below. If you would like NCVLA to speak to your organization regarding this or other issues, please call or e-mail us today.
NCVLA Sponsors Seminar onArt Law
The North Carolina Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts is sponsoring a seminar on Art Law on Friday, May 9, 2003 from 8 am to 5 pm at either the North Carolina Bar Center in Cary or the Durham Arts Council Building in Durham, to be determined by the end of this year. The seminar will feature a variety of lawyers who will discuss law issues that relate to Intellectual Property, copyright and trademark.
Pending approval by the North Carolina State Bar, six hours of continuing legal education credit will be provided for attorneys. To register for this event please stay tuned for the latest information. Registration should be available in March, 2003.
Musical Licensing Organizations and Blanket Licensing
Julie Raines, Executive Director, NCVLAHave you ever wondered whether Bruce Springsteen makes any money when "Born in the USA" plays over the sound system at your favorite restaurant? Depending on the sound system, he might. According to Morton Gould, President Emeritus of one musical licensing organization, "performing rights royalties - the money songwriters and music publishers earn from [the] licensing of their works - constitute the largest single source of their incomes." In order to avoid copyright infringement, the user of copyrighted material must pay a fee and seek a license from the copyright owner to use the material in question. To promote efficiency, music licensing organizations license users and collect fees, performing rights royalties, on behalf of thousands of composers. In the music industry, the music licensing organizations who routinely monitor the collection of licensing fees are commonly referred to as the "music police" in the popular media.
There are three music licensing organizations, also known as performing rights organizations or PRO's: the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI); and The Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC). ASCAP was created in 1914, boasts over 55,000 members within its ranks, and is operated by composers and artists. BMI is operated by the broadcasting industry and represents approximately 150,000 songwriters, composers and publishers. ASCAP and BMI are non-profit organizations while SESAC is privately owned. Each organization protects composers under essentially the same licensing process.
First, the composer grants one of the three PRO's a nonexclusive license to negotiate the use of the composer's works, or catalogue, on the composer's behalf. A composer will grant a PRO the rights to all of his/her individual songs. Each song subsequently written will be added to the catalogue of songs that the PRO will administer on behalf of the composer. This is similar to an individual granting power of attorney which gives that attorney the right to negotiate on the individual's behalf on a specific issue.
Working on behalf of the composer, the PRO then collects copyright fees from the copyright users. Although the composer grants the performing rights society this right to collect fees, the composer still retains the right to individually license his/her own works to other users and collect the respective fees associated with those individually licensed works.
Individual licensing would not be practical in most situations. In the restaurant industry, for example, it is far too cumbersome for a restaurant manager to make individual licensing agreements for every song that is played over loudspeakers within the restaurant during a one year period. Also, licenses must be obtained prior to using copyrighted material. Copyrighted musical works are property, and playing a musical work without a license is the equivalent of using someone's property without permission.
A restaurant manager has no way of predicting which songs will be played over the loudspeakers on any given day, let alone during any given year, especially if that manager uses the radio. Even if the manager could anticipate which songs would be played, the amount of work involved in negotiating licenses would be so expensive that no restaurant could afford to play many songs, if any at all.
Out of necessity, blanket licensing was created to solve the inherent problems of securing licenses prior to using copyrighted music. PRO's grant blanket licenses that allow businesses to use any songs within the PRO's catalogue of music. For example, when a restaurant obtaines a blanket license from ASCAP, that restaurant can play any songs within any of ASCAP's catalogues of music. A blanket license from both ASCAP and BMI thus allows the licensee to access millions of copyrighted musical works.
There is an exemption to the Copyright Act, the Homestyle Exemption, that allows restaurants and retail businesses to play copyright protected music without obtaining a license. Restaurants and bars that are less than 3,750 square feet and other retail businesses that are less than 2,000 square feet can qualify. They are restricted to fewer than six speakers total, with no more than four in one room, no more than four televisions total, no televisions more than 55" in diagonal screen size, and no more than one television per room.
For more information regarding music licensing, or any other art/entertainment law related issues, please contact the North Carolina Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (NCVLA) by visiting their web site, www.ncvla.org, sending them an email, info@nvla.org, or give them a call, 919-302-7520. NCVLA is supported, in part, by the North Carolina Arts Council, and through public donations.