Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/73257
P�� �� ���� N� ��� ����� ������ ���� �� ����� ��������� �������������, ��� �� ��� ���� ��� � ��� �� ������ ���� ��� ����. BY PAN DEMETRAKAKES I next thing you know, you're getting a call from a music licensing agency demanding money for copyright infringement. Mention the names "ASCAP, t can be a nerve-jangling experience: You let somebody with a guitar belt out "Margaritaville" during open mic night, and coff eehouse owners, and you'll oſt en get reactions like "Mafi a." Or worse. "Th e fi rst call from [SESAC] was made by a very rude " "BMI" and "SESAC" to (and usually recorded) by someone else—chances are they're playing music whose copyright is managed by one of the three major licensing organizations: ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers); BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.), and SESAC (which used to stand for Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, but now is a standalone non-acronym). PERMISSION NEEDED Th at means you, as the establishment owner, are responsible for getting permission from the copyright holder—and vulnerable to a lawsuit if you don't. Th is holds true for any copyrighted material, at any coff eehouse, anywhere, regardless of the performer's relationship, or lack thereof, with any licensing agency. As a practical matter, getting permission from every copyright holder of every individual song anyone in your coff eehouse might play would be next to impossible. Th at's woman who started out the conversation saying that they were going to sue me for playing live music without paying them," says Gerald Kalal, owner of K.Dees Coff ee and Roasting Co. in Lafayette, Ind. He kept getting bills for more than a year from SESAC for more than $1,000, and while he refused to pay, it stopped him from off ering live music. If you have live performers who play "covers"—songs written LIVE MUSIC FEE SCHEDULES FOR LICENSING ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZATION FEE SCHEDULE DESCRIPTION ANNUAL FEE FOR TYPICAL* COFFEEHOUSE $4.67 times total max. occupancy for performances 3 times or less per week; $5.59 for more than three times Flat fee for shops with 50 or less capacity, no alcohol, no cover $75 fl at rate available to SCAA members; otherwise, graduated schedule depending on seating and performance frequency $233.50 $315 $75 (SCAA member) $333 (non-SCAA member) *Maximum seating 50, performances twice a week, no alcohol, no cover charge or tickets sold Sources: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC where the licensing organizations come in. Among the three of them, they hold copyrights to millions of songs, and paying one of them an annual fee confers blanket permission for the performance of any song in their repertoire. NO OVERLAP Th e problem is that the repertoires of the three agencies don't overlap; a given song might belong to any one of them. It's up to the coff eehouse owner to fi nd out from performers which songs they're going to cover and ascertain whether those songs are in the repertoire of whatever agency issues their license (available on their websites). As a practical matter, many coff eehouses will buy licenses from both ASCAP and BMI. You can off er live music without paying for a license, but you have to make sure that all performers do only their own, original music. "You can legally not pay them and have live music," says Tony DiCorpo, owner of Troubadour Coff ee Co. in Fairview Park, Ohio. "You just have to be 100 percent sure that all artists in your venue play original songs. I have seen places get sued for having no license, and because bands played a cover and there was someone in the audience from BMI with a tape recorder. A lawsuit will cost a lot more than the yearly license. music organizations have been known to try to pressure them into getting a license anyway. "When I had my shop I was strong-armed by ASCAP to get not pay him. Ever." and I'm paying, what, three or four dollars for a cup of coff ee, and I'm just one customer, talking about [a license] that's less than a dollar a day for use of music for the entire year. Not bad. " Candilora says. "And now we're " SCR July 2012 • www.specialty-coffee.com | 17 licensing, realizes that no one likes to pay these fees, but insists that for the average coff eehouse, they need not be onerous. "I'll go in [a coff eehouse] and get a medium-size cappuccino " DiCorpo says. "I fl at out told the rep 'no' and I did Vincent Candilora, ASCAP's executive vice president for Even when shops strictly enforce a "no covers" policy, the " a license 'just in case someone plays a cover song' as the rep told me,