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

You can find the "legal's" on the Internet. You and I can say it's not right, but law is law until it's changed.

In my opinion you do your customers an injustice if you don't make them aware of the slim yet possible ramifications by violating the law.

Do these guys police MOH, probably not cause they're after the big offenders. But they do encourage and reward those who report offenders.

Here is one other instance where licensing was discussed. It looks like the subject has been talked about several times here in the General forum.

I always have an opinion.

dtmf and justbill said it for me.

Here is the quote that Justbill posted from another topic...ASCAP.com "Music on Hold is not exempt."

"The scope of the exemption in the old law had been unclear, and led to much litigation. The new law contains objective standards which will enable both music users and copyright owners to determine whether particular radio-over-speaker and television performances are exempt from copyright liability. Two types of music users are exempt, under different standards: a food service or drinking establishment(defined as "a restaurant, inn, bar, tavern, or any other similar place of business in which the public or patrons assemble for the primary purpose of being served food or drink, in which the majority of the gross square feet of space that is nonresidential is used for that purpose, and in which nondramatic musical works are performed publicly") and an other establishment (defined as "a store, shop, or any similar place of business open to the general public for the primary purpose of selling goods or services in which the majority of the gross square feet of space that is nonresidential is used for that purpose, and in which nondramatic musical works are performed publicly").

A food service or drinking establishment is eligible for the exemption if it (1) has less than 3750 gross square feet of space (in measuring the space, the amount of space used for customer parking only is always excludable); or (2) has 3750 gross square feet of space or more and (a) uses no more than 6 loudspeakers of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space; and (b) if television sets are used, there are no more than 4 televisions, of which not more than 1 is located in any 1 room and none has a diagonal screen size greater than 55 inches.

An other establishment is eligible for the exemption if it (1) has less than 2000 gross square feet of space; or (2) has 2000 or more gross square feet of space and satisfies the same loudspeaker and television set requirements as for food service or drinking establishments."

Now that makes alot sense doesn't it...I don't
see where this applies to MOH...
If you take what is being written by fellow techs
about the licensing legalites as gospel truth..
where is the technical facts that support MOH is
a broadcast medium, so far I haven't seen anything written that would convince me otherwise. You can't believe everything you read
especially from entites that want money.
I guess, what this all amounts to is that we have
choices...to pay or not to pay!!!!
I want a definitive answer to my question..if no
one can give that answer...it does render the
Royalty payments issue moot.
Let our conscience be our guide.

It's quite simple. If you don't want to CYA that's 100% up to you, I choose to cover mine.

It's been stated by many the odds of getting caught are slim, but they do exist.

Your last line says it all. "Let our conscience be our guide." I do and I won't knowingly break a law nor put my customers in that position.

You can read the copyright law on music here 17 U.S.C. SECTION 101, but unless you're a copyright lawyer you're not going to understand it.

I found many definitions on the Internet, this link explains it best.

I don't feel this will change any minds, but it will give others who come here for advice more than just our opinions on the matter.

Yes I know this is a MOH service, but it combines everything else I found from non MOH services into one condensed version. Feel free to search for yourselves.

If the technical question I asked can be answered, then maybe we can move on to the moral
concerns of this subject.

I viewed the link....it says alot...and they are
selling their own licenses as well.."sounds like
the fox guarding the hen house."
We can go on forever with how all this legal stuff is interpreted...lots of info to digest.
Read the link and determine for yourself what is
right...

One last point...given what this country has had
to deal with lately..I am very wary of any entity
using the legal jargon to threaten us with fines
and jail time...Wall St, banks, etc. all hide behind enormous amounts of legalese and look what
they did to ALL of us.
So, are BMI/ASCAP et al....any different????
I guess thats the rub.
This is my opinion...take it for what it is worth.

I was configuring a Nortel/Avaya BCM phone system, and they have the option to stream music from an internet source (ip address). Does anyone know of a free intertnt source for streaming music on hold?