Elda Brandt, the owner of Dam Bar, recently made it known that she wants nothing more than to settle her “copyright infringement dispute with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a nonprofit performance rights organization.” For those who don’t know, the ASCAP filed a lawsuit against her in federal court “for playing unlicensed music.” So far she has been asked to pay “about $4,000 in licensing fees to ASCAP; Broadcast Music Inc., a music rights organization; and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, or SEASAC, also a performance rights organization.” To help defend herself against the complaints from ASCAP, Brandt said she plans on “hiring a Seattle lawyer to represent her.”
Elda Brandt, the owner of Dam Bar, recently made it known that she wants nothing more than to settle her “copyright infringement dispute with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a nonprofit performance rights organization.” For those who don’t know, the ASCAP filed a lawsuit against her in federal court “for playing unlicensed music.” So far she has been asked to pay “about $4,000 in licensing fees to ASCAP; Broadcast Music Inc., a music rights organization; and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, or SEASAC, also a performance rights organization.” To help defend herself against the complaints from ASCAP, Brandt said she plans on “hiring a Seattle lawyer to represent her.”
The ASCAP represents “650,000 songwriters, lyricists, composers and music publishers.” The lawsuit was filed earlier this month on February 13, and stems from an April 19, 2017, incident in Brandt’s bar where “four songs were sung by karaoke singers without ASCAP’s permission and were documented by a private investigator at the venue.” As a result of the alleged copyright infringement, ASCAP is “seeking $3,000 to $120,000 in damages and attorney’s fees from The Dam Bar after trying more than 15 times over 16 months to get Brandt to pay the licensing fee for playing four unlicensed songs,” according to the lawsuit.
When discussing the lawsuit, Brandt expressed a desire to settle everything with ASCAP and other organizations so her bar can play “copyrighted music by the artists they represent.” She also mentioned that while she’s onboard to pay the fees mentioned in the complaint, she’s hopeful that she won’t have to pay attorney fees. But why has it taken so long for Brandt to want to settle? After all, ASCAP mentioned that it tried over and over to get her to pay the fees before it filed the lawsuit.
It turns out that, before the complaint was filed against her, Brandt wasn’t entirely aware that ASCAP was a legitimate organization. She said, “had I known they were a legitimate company and had it been explained to me, I probably would have gone ahead and gotten licensed.” She added that she “received letters in the mail with ASCAP logo and phone calls from people identifying themselves as being from ASCAP that she reported to the police as scams,” and said:
“Had someone walked into my bar and sat down with me and we had a meeting and they explained who there are and what they do, there’s a chance I would have paid the fee. They wanted $1,000 from me. That needs a face to face. Instead, they send ‘nastygrams,’ and they made phone calls, and I mean nasty phone calls, and I just hung up on them. Other bar owners said, ‘Ignore them, and they’ll go away, ignore them, and they’ll go away.’ They’re not going away anymore.”
Fortunately, many individuals and groups have stepped up to support her to help pay some of the fees. For example, “last weekend the Bad Dog Blues Society donated the $400 fee that Brandt would have paid the band and ‘passed the can’ several times for donations.” In response to the massive support, Brandt said: “it just warms my heart.”
A former bartender at The Dam, Brandt said that depending on how the settlement plays out, she’ll have to close her bar if the amount is too high, and said she now “regrets not paying the license fee.”
According to ASCAP, playing unlicensed music is a serious offense and mentioned “the vast majority of bars and entertainment venues pay” the necessary licensing fees. Typically, the fees are “paid as royalties to artists.” When asked about Brandt’s desire to reach a settlement, Jackson Wagener, a lawyer with for ASCAP, said the organization is open to a settlement. However, he also noted that “a settlement with ASCAP would likely exceed the cost of a license.”
Sources:
Dam Bar owner looks to settle copyright infringement lawsuit with ASCAP
Venues Refuse to Pay Songwriters While Profiting from Their Music
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