Open mic nights at bar lead to lawsuit from BMI over music, ask for $121,000

[defacto7]

182. You have some good points.

It does go to lawyers though. They are the ones who make up these contracts and advise the corporations. Their aim is to make a buck on song writers just as much as the corporations themselves.

If you are making your living selling your music I don't blame you for wanting to make your living out of it. You have to follow your instincts and needs. If it is necessary for survival and pursuit of happiness, then you have to do what you have to do. My point is that these corporations know this is the case for many and take advantage of it. They also know they can make a lot of money on the art of the ultra successful by pushing the small business owner into paying exorbitant fees that sometimes represents an unreasonable percentage of their income. And sometimes they push fees where there isn't even evidence of use, with threat of a lawsuit.

You said, "Maybe this bar should not play or use any copyrighted music." On the small scale, it's advertising for the artist and the music, not the other way around. I think the bar should be paid actually. The small time musician may at times play copyrighted songs but it's a tiny pleasure, a tiny human artistic expression that is destroyed by business threats to bar owners and others for the benefit of those who wield financial power, not to you or me the writers, artists or performers. No wonder the 99%ers are pissed at the incongruous nature of humanity.

If you have to play that game, OK. I choose not to. I'm an idealist I guess, not a pragmatist.