Originally Posted by MDawg View Post
Originally Posted by MDawg View Post
Whether a musician has lost or sold the rights to his music (the Beatles were in that situation for most of their career, although Paul McCartney has regained some publishing rights to some of his songs), someone or some entity has those rights and absent fair use (see below) no one is allowed to play the copyrighted music in a public setting without either permission or paying some kind of royalty.

Even when bands play covers or DJs play music, the venue itself is either paying royalties or has some kind of blanket arrangement whereby something is paid to the copyright holders.

When it comes to politicians playing music at their events, they too need to pay for use of the music and if the copyright holder such as the band doesn't object, nothing extraordinary happens, some kind of compensation is passed along if the holder requires it, but if the copyright holder objects, the politician is supposed to not play or stop playing the musician's music. For the most part this does not become an issue, but with someone like Grump who gets people fired up one way or another, there are some musicians who have asked him to stop playing their music and have gone as far as sending cease and desist letters and threatening legal action.

And some, have taken it all the way to lawsuits.

More and more artists want Trump to stop using their music. They face a costly fight

By the way, a Grump defense (that will probably fail) and over arching principle that defeats copyright infringement is called fair use, where someone who uses copyrighted material in a non-commercial manner, for example for educational use, and not for profit, doesn't need a license (doesn't need permission) doesn't need to pay for its use. But Grump is using the music to promote his campaign which is far from fair use.

Still, if you pay attorneys enough (and Grump has lined his pockets with quite a bit of his supporters funds, such that he just burns OTHER people's money not his for such things), they will come up with creative arguments that will make it very costly to beat them, even if the end result is inevitable.
Restaurants, bars consider turning off music as licensing fees skyrocket

Ever since operetta composer Victor Herbert sued Shanley’s restaurant in New York in 1917 to force it to pay for playing his song on a player-piano, songwriters and music publishers have depended on Performing Rights Organizations to make sure they get compensated.

For much of the last century, three organizations dominated the industry, a relatively staid and unglamorous corner of the music scene that remained largely unchanged throughout the eras of radio, records and CDs. But the rise of streaming has led to a surge in revenue and spawned a handful of new organizations looking to cash in.

Now there are at least half a dozen PROs in the United States, representing songwriters and publishers, each demanding that bars, restaurants, hotels and other venues pay a fee or risk being sued.

Businesses say the rising licensing costs have become overwhelming, and some question whether it’s even worth playing music at all.
Is there any reason you couldn't run a radio station at a bar outside of the fact that clientele have to hear ads? What about streaming? I know ppv but thats not a public thing like radio.