Jerome and Kentaro:

 

This is only partially true.  ASCAP and BMI licenses are based strictly on two factors, the number of seats in your venue (whether they are filled or not!), and your highest ticket price.  (We got caught on that one year when we gave our program as a Dinner-Concert, and the cost of the dinner was included in the ticket price!)  But that does not mean that the license is free for a free performance.  And the two organizations use different formulas for figuring the cost of your license.  The licenses are blanket and cover everything in the ASCAP or BMI catalog, not specific pieces, so the number of movements is NOT a factor (although it might be for the rental fee if you are renting the music).

 

This is true if nothing has changed since I was last involved in obtaining licenses about 10 years ago.  We don't worry about them for our university ensemble performances.

 

John

 

 

Hi, Paul. Educational Fair Use is indeed far less forgiving than it used to be, but it's also clearly spelled out in the Fair Use Guidelines that are now at least 35 years old, and can still be obtained (I assume) from the Music Publishers Association website.

 

You are incorrect about charging an admission fee, according to those Guidelines, as long as the income is used for educational or charitable purposes. You are correct about anyone on the program being paid. BUT, if anyone is paid it does not negate the educational exemption on paying performance royalties through ASCAP or BMI, it just gives a copyright owner the power to forbid a performance in writing. (If I remember the Guidelines accurately, of course; it's been a while since I studied them in depth.)

 

I have always assumed that this university has the reqired performance licenses as a matter of course (whether those are in some way "special" or not), but to cover outside guest performers and not necessarily to cover the permitted educational performances by music department ensembles. Some have claimed that the educational exemptions apply only to K-12 music and not to universities, but there is nothing in the Guidelines that says that, and in fact since NASM was a party to the discussions that led to the Guidelines (along with MENC), it's pretty clear that they DO apply.

 

Way back during WW 2 the Feds enacted a "temporary" entertainment tax on all performances (which was treated as permanent until it was finally repealed). That's when my dad, among many other music educators, started giving "free" concerts with a "suggested donation." But that had nothing to do with copyright law or with performance royalties, which in any case were exempt under the 1909 law because they were not "public performance for profit." THAT is the provision that the MPA got taken out of the 1976 revsion of the law, and they agreed to the Fair Use Guidelines to soften the blow to schools (and churches).

 

All the best,

 

John