Sunday, December 30, 2012

Original music in coffeehouses

Coffeehouses requiring only original music from their performers would seem to be a boost for singer-songwriters, until we look a bit closer... One of the revenue streams for musicians has been what is known as "performance rights" i.e. funds collected from performance venues on an annual license basis and distributed to members of performing rights societies (ASCAAP and BMI) based on an algorithm that no one understands, but in practice means independent musicians get very little, and major-label artists pretty much divide the pie up between them. One of the means for determining who gets what are set lists (songs played on a given night) with title and composer submitted by the venue, all of which go into the database at BMI (etc) and get munged by the algorithm. Performing rights societies, in the meantime, have realized that an increasing number of their members are 1) independent, and 2) playing in venues like coffeehouses that don't pay license fees. The societies have reacted by asking independent songwriters to submit set lists directly to them, and by descending on the coffeehouses with demands for license fees and/or fines. Songwriters have hesitated to submit set lists, since the net effect could be the closing of the venue. The loophole for the coffeehouses is to only allow songs to be performed "with the permission of the songwriter" i.e. by the songwriter him or herself. The performing rights societies are then out of the loop, and no money changes hands if the songwriter doesn't submit set lists. The songwriter is often performing for tips, meaning the event contributes virtually nothing to the economics of a music career. This is the downside. The upside is that coffeehouses do furnish a space where songwriters can perform in public, though without payment or promotion, audiences can be minimal. All this is a bit technical, but the phenomenon is part of a series of issues that have undermined the economics of song writing and performance, including rampant piracy of recordings, and lack of adequate payment for internet streaming of recorded songs.

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