Gallery Music System?

To further complicate this issue:

My understanding is that there are many royalty licensing companies, but these are the top 3:

ASCAP
SESAC
BMI

These 3 represent about 95% of the artists out there. Technically, you should check which one of them your artist is affiliated with, to make sure you are allowed to play it. ASCAP is the larger of the 3, but only covers a percentage of music you can play.

I believe if you are selling the CD that is playing, and have it on display as such, it may become a non issue.

Skating/roller rinks, aerobics instructors, retail stores, high school or marching bands, and even folks singing "happy birthday to you" are not exempt from this law, which has some stiff fines - if enforced. I did some research and its surprising how much legal clout they have.

Exempt: Religious organizations, non profit institutions, stores selling music, government, state fairs, movie houses, etc

Mike


"the only time you do not have to pay to use music is when you are sitting in your home or automobile listening to the radio with your family. And in that case, the radio station paid for you to hear the music with blanket licenses from ASCAP and BMI, and you pay by listening to the station's commercials. Every other possible use of music legally requires the payment of a licensing fee. "

http://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html
 
We've been mostly playing CDs since we gave up the satellite radio service at the start of this thread. I was using XM for a short time, but reception was an occasional problem. I think Sirius would be similar in terms of reception performance.

Today I started listening to Pandora.com, a build-your-own-radio-station internet site based on the Music Genome Project. It is set up for continuous music streaming, and may be the perfect solution to my dilemma.

I can select my own favorite artists/songs and have them playing from my computer through the store's amplified speaker system. I can build multiple "stations" according to the types of music I want, and change them at will.

For $36 per year it comes commercial free. Free registration is also available, but that comes with occasional commercials. I'll try the free version for a week or so before paying the subscription fee. Today, it seems too good to be true.
 
I also highly recommend Live365.com. Free if you want to listen to commercials, 26 bucks every 6 months for commercial free. The variety of music is staggering and the quality (as long as you have a good broadband hookup) is very good. We've been running it for years now. Everything from basement jocks spinning whatever they get off on, to professional stations playing corporate swill. Very, very good for the price.

Joe
 
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