JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Industry Message Forum Questions about BMI LIVE..

Just got my latest royalty statement from BMI. Seems they have a new feature called BMI LIVE where artists who perform original music can upload their setlists and collect royalties for performing their songs live. First question..Wouldn't it be easy to cheat the system {post bogus dates, or post songs you didn't actually play?} Secondly,could BMI use this as a tool to track down clubs for not paying licensing fees? And thirdly those of us who mix covers and originals in our live shows, could BMI come after US for cover royalties?

My take on this is:

1. I guess so
2. The reason they are doing it, IMHO
3. No - it is the venue's responsibility

In answer to question one, I suppose you could, but it's not enough money to lie about, and I'm sure if they found anything fishy, it would get looked into. I believe at least one of the other PRO's does this already and BMI is catching up. It's more of an approximate calculation as everything is with a PRO. They pay differently for different things, and checks can be alot more or alot less than other PRO's for the same quarters of songs.

In answer to three, I'm sure the writers will be paid just as you are as far as the covers go.

Bob,

This is just a bit of playing catch up to ASCAP, who has had their "ASCAP Awards" program for about 20 years. They have been doing it for a long time. It is also to respond to people who are going "Exactly why am I a member of BMI?" Because they are not paying out as much money as they used to. Both BMI and ASCAP are finding themselves more and more irrelevant as music goes more to "Free."

You could try to "pad" all kinds of things and cheat but you would only be cheating yourself, and like all things, it is more of an averaging than an actually "dollar to performance" ratio.

They might come and audit the clubs you work for and see if they pay their liscencing fees and of course that could result in what many clubs have done, shut down live music completely.

But the venues supposedly have already paid liscencing fees for the songs they play.

As in all things music, there are no exactitudes. It is all formulas, and all averaged out. Play a lot, you might get paid more than people who don't play a lot. If you were playing in venues that pay liscencing fees, it would be no harder than looking at their calendars to find out if you were telling the truth or not. If you lied, you would find it fairly uncomfortable.

MAB

Well, I play a LOT, and I don't lie, so I might have to look into signing up. I think MOST of the clubs I play pay the license fees, and the ones who don't will probably get caught up to sooner or later. I'd just rather not be responsible for. I've had a number of neighborhood bars discontinue live music because BMI and/or ASCAP caught up with them.