Music License and Royalties Questions

Cafe Society
1

Two different scenarios:

  1. It’s Karaoke night at my local bar and I decide to get up and sing a song for the small crowd. I sing the Rolling Stones’ song ‘You Can’t Always Get What you Want’. I don’t think I owe anyone anything, but presumably the bar has to pay to use the song in a public space, or do they? It’s not the Rolling Stones’ version, but a copy someone did without any vocals. Still, somebody owns the rights to that song and it’s not the bar owner.

  2. I decide I want to earn some money playing cover songs on my guitar and singing at my local bar. They agree to pay be $50 for a set of 6 songs. I pick 6 random songs that I obviously didn’t write and sing them to the small crowd. Do I now owe money to the artists or music publishers? How do I pay whomever needs to be paid?

2

Not sure about 2, but for 1) The bar already paid the artist when they bought that copy of the song recorded sans vocals.

3

In both of these cases, the venue is supposed to have paid fees tor live performances of cover songs and prerecorded music. I’m not sure how universal being properly licensed is, though.

IANAL, but my understanding is that unless you record someone else’s song, or unless you’re running the venue, the artist doesn’t have to pay licensing fees themselves.

ASCAP’s page on licensing bars & music venues.

4

The company that produced the instrumental version paid licensing fees to record the music, which is administered by the Harry Fox Agency.

As mentioned, the venue paid the songwriters via ASCAP and/or BMI based on the capacity of the venue.