sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Licensing....ASCAP, BMI and Others:

Where's the ambiguity?

ASCAP defines a public performance as:

"A public performance is one that occurs either in a public place or any place where people gather (other than a small circle of a family or its social acquaintances.) A public performance is also one that is transmitted to the public; for example, radio or television broadcasts, music-on-hold, cable television, and by the internet."

BMI's definition is similar.
So, regardless of what we consider a public performance. They are defining what is a public performance, and therefore define the legality. In the same way that the Federal Reserve Bank (a private entity)defines laws that it expects our government/leagal system to enforce OR Microsoft defines what is or is not software piracy. The difference in the later being that you consent to said rules, my point being that a private entity is defining an action that is punishable by law.

That is why, in my opinion, it is a racquet.

Regardless of anyone's opinion or the morality of the situation. If one plays music on hold of copywritten material without paying royalties, they are in violation of the Law. Pretty simple.

While you're at it telling them about the legalities, why not sell them a MOH system that comes with licensing?

As a good friend of mine says, "You're only mad cause you aren't getting paid too"

Did you read this? Like I said, feel free to search for yourself so you can make an informed decision as to take the chance for you and your customer or not.

Does anyone know of open-source or non-copyrighted performances which are available for download or public usage?

Really, it just needs to not be too annoying and sufficient to keep a caller from hanging up. I suppose that one could record "clementine" as played on a touchtone phone (4441,6664,4688,654,4566,6564,465,1354) except that most callers would find it annoying when the novelty wore off.

Go out and grab a copy of Message Studio 3.0. It comes with 20 tracks and you can spring $15 or $20 and get another 40 or so tracks. It's the typical hold music that everybody has...
https://www.onholdplus.com/categories/MessageStudio-Software/

Carl

BMI's fees for using their artist's music is included in this Music License for Music On Hold agreement.

Depending on what socket type they're talking about connecting to, of course, there's plenty of commercial free stations on Shoutcast. And from what I gather about the shoutcast license you need from ASCAP ( I actually toyed with the thought of making a station) the station itself is responsible for the license and it is taken into account that more than one end user would be listening at any given time i.e. playing in an office, so logically it'd be no different for MOH...but then again there's nothing logical about the way licensing works, so who knows.


https://www.shoutcast.com/Internet-Radio/commercial%20free

the shoutcast stations typically take the form of numericIP:Port i.e. 123.456.78.90:1234 so it might work.

(I was actually going to post this earlier after the MOH radio station comment, but chose instead to argue the legal implications and forgot)

There ARE 2 wide open, non-copyright tunes.
Home On The Range, and Greensleeves. And Greensleeves turns into 'What Child Is This' on December 1st and back to Greensleeves on January 1st. (Not really, just the same melody. )

Oh, and Home On The Range was written in Nebraska, Bill's home.