so I can not play any of their stuff.
got a friend with a bar and he wants to play independent music only and promote it as well. but I am having some trouble finding a list.
BMI and ASCAP represent most independent labels as well. You won’t be able to find a list for free since both catalogs are huge, encompassing hundreds of thousands of songs.
A much better approach is to find the few small record labels which do not have contracts with BMI or ASCAP. (There are very few.)
Don’t forget SESAC. They’re the ones who found us first. We just pay the extortion – I figure that with the record industries revenues down so much that they’ll be pretty much forced to defend their ‘copyright’ at any cost.
The ‘mechanical’ license, for a jukebox or ambient music of any kind is the killer. Live music a few nights a week isn’t so bad, although it sucks knowing that so little, if any, of the revenue actually gets to the artists.
As far as ‘independent music’, our musicians are usually doing original works, so the copyright issue is moot. However, we host an open mic every Friday. How the heck are we supposed to keep people from singing covers at an open mic? We also host a ‘song circle’, community sing-along on Tuesday. Mainly old folk songs, but some other stuff is mixed in. It’s pretty much impossible to police it, which is what these organizations rely upon.
If he’s got a bar, the answer is to pay, pay, pay. Charge a cover for the bands, to cover the extortion fees. If he can’t afford to pay these guys, he’s not charging enough for his booze.
good info to have from both of you, I am pretty much researching this and the viability, and the viability pretty much looks bad.
I do have another question that might even have an answer, I noticed most of my cd’s have bmi or ascap labels next to the recording label on the packaging, if this bit is lacking is there any chance that its independant of them?
There is a chance – but to know, you’d have to look up the artist in the ASCAP/ BMI/ SESAC databases until you (didn’t) find them.