Businesses and Music Licenses
There’s an internet tale hanging around that tells the story of a bar that got a call from the copyright manager of the song “Are You Ready for Some Football?” sung by Hank Williams Jr at the opening of the Monday Night Football telecasts. The story goes that the bar was told they had to pay royalties since they showed Monday Night Football on the televisions in their bar. Clever barowner decided just to turn down the volume when that song came on.
The story either is not true, or it’s true but the caller was a scam artist.
It is true that bars and restaurants must pay a licensing fee for the use of copyrighted music in their establishment, whether on a recorded cd, a jukebox, or performed by a live band. But most bars do NOT pay a licensing fee for music broadcast over a television program playing in the bar. The law specifically carves out an exception to the need to pay royalties for
“A food service or drinking establishment [that] (1) has less than 3750 gross square feet of space (in measuring the space, the amount of space used for customer parking only is always excludable); or (2) has 3750 gross square feet of space or more and (a) uses no more than 6 loudspeakers of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space; and (b) if television sets are used, there are no more than 4 televisions, of which not more than 1 is located in any 1 room and none has a diagonal screen size greater than 55 inches.”
Tomorrow I’ll address the music licenses that a bar should have.
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