This year the SESAC Organization formally known as “The Society of European Stage Authors and Composers” is on a quest for local taverns, restaurants, night clubs, and bar lounges in the Bronx, New York area to obtain licensing to play any copyrighted music under its extensive catalog or potentially be fined heavily if they don’t comply.
SESAC is one of the few organizations that is designed to represent songwriters, composers, and music publishers and their right to be compensated when their works are performed in public. This right falls under the Copyright Law of the U.S. or Copyright Act of 1976 (Acticle1, Sec 8, Clause 8) www.copyright.gov/laws
The SESAC license is for the licensing of copyrighted music performances in a establishment including the re-broadcast of (television videos, music concerts) the mechanical use of, (cd, dvd, jukebox, videos, radio) live use of, ( dj, karaoke, live band singers) or web performance of any music in their catalog. SESAC catalog includes well over 400,000 songs on behalf of songwriters, composers, music publishers and those in the film and television genre. Including music from talents like Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Shirley Caesar, Beyoncé, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige just to name a few. (sesac.com)
SESAC also represents music from some of today’s most popular shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Dateline NBC, and How I Met Your Mother. SESAC notices have been going out to local establishments in the Bronx noticeably since December 2013. Enclosing in the notification, an application and fees required to obtain a license for mechanical and or live or web use of copyrighted music. Remember that ASCAP and BMI are also copyright license organizations that have their own catalog separate from each other and are demanding licenses for the use of their client’s works as well. Establishment owners may have to obtain all three organizations licenses because one does not cover the other they are all separate entities.
What does this mean for local mom & pop clubs and juke joints? Well, it may cost them a little, it may cost them a lot, but it will cost them from possibly only a couple of hundreds to possibly thousands of dollars to obtain these licenses- or they may opt to “let the music play” and run the risk of an investigation by these organizations that can site them on copyright infringement laws. Fines and court cost could run them a tidy sum if found guilty. And still there may be some establishment owners who choose to ignore the mailed warnings but when the time comes to pay the piper… It might just be their “Swan Song”
