Re: Midis

From: <Tilyou1[_at_]aol.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 14:19:25 EST

On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Alesia Stein <alesia[_at_]northcountrynotes.com> wrote:
>
> In it the author seems to be asking for a consideration of licensing
> the use of midis for webmasters through BMI and ASCAP, the same way
> restaurants and the like do.

To the extent the article you refer to says this:

   The problem for Webmasters is that MIDI files are    currently treated as publications, not performances.    Performance licenses, available from BMI and ASCAP,    are relatively inexpensive. These licenses allow    restaurants and other establishments to play commercial    music and provide a method of payment to the    composers and performers of those works. If MIDI files    could be licensed in a similar way, it would encourage    licensing and result in more royalties to composers.    The current scheme is prohibitively expensive since it    requires a license for each MIDI file carried on a Web site.    

it is wrong. I believe that BMI and ASCAP already regard MIDI files as performances. See below.

• Charles CBKNYC[_at_]aol.com

Charles B. Kramer, Esq.
<tilyou1[_at_]aol.com>

---

 Business Wire, February 10, 1999

 {excerpt}

 BMI was the first music rights organization to sign an agreement  for the performance of music on the Internet and one of the first  entertainment companies to create a site on the web in 1994.  Since then, the organization has offered downloadable licenses  over the Internet and created an online music use reporting  system which electronically processes licensee's music use  information over the web. BMI is using the information collected  through its online system to distribute royalties to its  affiliates based on performances of BMI music on the Internet.

---

 The New York Times
 November 29, 1998, Sunday, Late Edition - Final  HEADLINE: MUSIC ON-LINE; Songwriters' Rights  {excerpt}    

 To the Editor:

      We at ASCAP find that once music web sites understand that music  creators get most of their income from the performance of the song (and  not, like the recording artists or record labels, from the sale of  "plastic"), most are willing to pay license fees rather than play  pirate.

 MARILYN BERGMAN
 Los Angeles
 The writer is the president and chairman of the board of ASCAP. Received on Thu Feb 25 1999 - 19:24:03 GMT