From Musicians Contact.com: Lately we’ve seen articles stating that the Eagles, ABBA, Earth, Wind, & Fire and some others have filed lawsuits against different tribute bands to stop them from performing. The main issue was that some were using a name or logo which was TOO close, or they were not “sanctioned” by the original artist. And what about the royalty issue?
For ages, venues have been paying ASCAP and BMI a yearly fee so they can distribute royalties to their known artists for the cover songs that have been performed. These performing rights organizations now feature online portals which also allow upcoming ORIGINAL bands to submit a list of tunes they played in a club, so the band can collect a royalty, which is great. But how do these organizations know how much to pay their big-name artists for tunes played by COVER bands since they don’t submit a list?
Radio and TV stations must keep exacting stats on who gets played and how often, so that’s easy to determine. But when it comes to which cover songs are played in clubs, no one knows for sure. Apparently ASCAP and BMI get their data from general airplay stats supplied by CURRENT major artists that receive heavy radio or streaming play.
But classic rock and older r&b tunes are played much more in clubs now as opposed to current top 40. Old Stones tunes are performed live many more times in venues than the latest Taylor Swift hit, so in a perfect world this should mean that the Stones get more $$ than Taylor!
Aren’t most cover bands sort of doing a tribute to the artists they cover? If a band plays 40 tunes an evening, by 20 different artists, most likely they are copying the tunes fairly closely – after all, that’s why they got hired. Worst case scenario would be if every original artist sued these groups, there would be no cover bands left, much less tribute acts! Seems like a hot topic – what do you think? info@MusiciansContact.com
https://www.MusiciansContact.comSterling Howard, founder/ownerinfo@MusiciansContact.com 818-888-7879
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