Legalized Bullying...

Broadcast Music Incorporated is the legalized Mafia... no really. BMI has been calling and trying to get me to pay the legally due music license fee that all business must pay in order to play certain artists music in their place of business. it's law. SO J-lo, Pibull, Shakira... yeah. I have to pay to play their music even though I bought their music. My business is small and I have been trying to save my money to pay my dues. in the meantime I have done my best to remove BMI represented artists from my playlists. Here is the conversation that I had the other day after already receiving threatening calls... BMI rep (start out in a nice professional tone): I am calling today to find out when you are going to pay the music lisence fee that is legally due. Me: I am so glad you called. I wanted to let you know I have been working on removing BMI represented artists from my playlists. BMI: that's impossible ME: actually it's not. It is hard and time consuming but not impossible. I just type a song into your search engine and then remove it if it pops up as one you represent. BMI (angry voice): there are millions of songs and songwriters that we represent. It is nearly impossible to find music we don't represent. Where are you finding your music? ME: I would rather not give you my resources for my non BMI represented music. and it is not impossible - just tough. But I am doing it. BMI: Send me your current playlist so that I can double check and make sure you are complying. ME: I don't think so. I would rather not send you the list I have worked hard to create only to have BMI turn around and contact those artists and songwriters so they can represent them and then negate all my efforts and time. BMI: I don't have the time to call everyone on your playlist! that's not my job. I just want to double check to make sure you are obeying the law. ME: and then you will take my list to someone else at your office whose job it IS to contact artists they don't represent yet and see if you can represent them as well. BMI: I won't do that. I just need your playlist. That's the only we we can make sure you are obeying the law. ME: I will trust you as much as you trust me. You know what else is against the law - selling crack cocaine. I hope the police trust I am not doing that and don't need to search my home regularly to make sure I am complying with the law that says I should not sell hard drugs. So glad the Local police officers don't use the same method you do to make sure I comply with the law. can you imagine. tell you what, since you are so dedicated to making sure I obey the law, why don't you come over to my home and search it for hard drugs too just to make sure I am not breaking any laws? BMI: (Laughs a little condescending laugh) - that isn't my job Me: You're right and it isn't the local police officers' job either. so I would appreciate it if you would also quit calling me. BMI: Well we WILL be calling you regularly to make sure you are complying until I get that play list. ME: so you are going to Harass a law abiding citizen until they pay their nuisance fee? sounds like the mafia to me. BMI: (think Godfather)Everybody pays ma'am. Me: tell you what... You call me again, I am recording our conversations and letting a lawyer know about the Harassment that is the BMI business method. I hung up. Yesterday I got a call from the BMI Legal department trying to once again scare me into paying a debt that I don't legally owe as I have been finding music they don't represent. I need the word passed around to everyone what BMI is and what their tactics are. My husband - the artist - gets paid ONCE when a business owner buys a painting to hang in any place of business. he doesn't get paid yearly for the business owner to have the RIGHT to allow their clients to view his artwork. My friend Hart Wixom the writer does not get paid when his books that someone legally purchased decides to sell it to a bookstore or donate it to a library. Other places of business do not have to pay other types of artists annual fees to use the items they created. Truth is, these songwriters and musicians should be paying me! When I played their music in my studio my clients ask me "who is this?" I would tell them and they would go out and BUY the music. I should be charging an advertising fee. Alas, no. instead musicians have gotten an act of congress to pad their pockets so small business owner like me can be bullied and hounded by corporations like BMI. I also told BMI that my business was small. I am barely covering my bills and paying my trainers. I sometimes don't even pay myself. It will take some time before I can save the money needed to pay the fee they demand. as one BMI representative said as I explained my plight and my argument: "it would take an act of congress to change things. You and I talking on the phone isn't going to change anything for you. you still need to pay up." That is what angers me - that congress had gotten involved in small business so much. that songwriters thinking they aren't making enough money had to take it up with congress to change things for them. Congress should have never been involved. Now BMI acts as a legalized Mafia with the backing of congress. how do you fight it?