About Public Performance Rights - And our program.                      Go Back The question that we are most asked by store owners is based around allocation of the blanket license fees that the store owners have to pay to companies such as ASCAP or BMI. Their concern is that companies such as BMI and ASCAP demand public performance royalty payments for the music played in the store owner's establishment. That in itself is fair; however, places such as cafes, restaurants, bars, lounges, coffee houses, and other public related establishments pay a blanket license fee in order to play music and compensate artists for public performance royalties.   Most store owner's are told that the money they pay to ASCAP or BMI, in the form of this blanket license fee, goes to the artists.  Well it does go to the artists.  Just not the artists that are being played in most small trendy establishments. How do we know this ?  Well it's quite simple actually...  Just ask this question....   If you pay ASCAP an annual blanket fee in order to compensate the artists for their music but never provide ASCAP with a list of the artists that you have played, then how are the artists that you are playing being compensated? In other words, how does ASCAP know who to allocate the money to when they have no idea what artists you are playing? The Problem: The problem is that a blanket license fee is treated as a generic payment into a "surplus", most of which is distributed to the most played artists, also known as "mainstream artists", like Britney Spears, Sting, Phil Collins, etc, by a formulated percentage split. Many small trendy cafes, lounges, bars, restaurants, etc. enjoy playing music that is not mainstream. In fact, they purposely turn away from mainstream and play lesser known music in order to provide a unique environment for their customers. What this means is that the money store owners pay towards public performance royalties, in the form of their blanket license, does not go to the artists they are playing. It goes to the mainstream artists which means that most artists are not being properly compensated. This does not make ASCAP or BMI bad people. The assumption, on their part, is that if a restaurant is playing music for customers, then that restaurant is more than likely playing mainstream music. The flaw in their system is that there is no accountability of what artists are being played and for store owners that play trendy lesser known artists, they end up paying mainstream artists for the right to play non-mainstream music.  The Solution: Oddly enough, many store owners understand the problem and often talk to us about it. Because of this, CHM, has created what we feel to be a wonderful solution. At CoffeeHouseMusic.com, we work with artists that allow us to grant specific locations the right to play their music royalty free. In return, the artists that work with CoffeeHouseMusic.com feel that the opportunity to sell their music to new listeners, or the exposure they gain from having their music played, is greater compensation than what they would receive from companies such as ASCAP or BMI.   While we sell all of our CDs in our catalog as traditional CDs, many of the CDs that we sell have the added option of being used as royalty free CDs.  These CDs can be played in an establishment in order to entertain customers and the establishment that plays these CDs does not have to pay companies such as ASCAP or BMI. Initially, the CD is a traditional CD; however, the CD becomes a royalty free CD if the store owner acquires the CD through one of our royalty free programs. In order to make finding our royalty free CDs simply, we have a separate section for them. Royalty Free Retail are CDs that are available at retail price. This is for those that simply wish to buy one CD to play in their establishment.  Royalty Free Wholesale are CDs that can be bought at both the retail price or the wholesale price in order for establishments to sell the same royalty free CD that they are playing as a traditional retail CD to customers. With wholesale, only one CD is considered royalty free since only one location will be playing it.  Customers are not concerned about royalty free issues.  They simply want to buy a CD to bring home and enjoy. The great part  about our royalty free programs is that they are structured so all of our artists are compensated.   This way the artists are happy since they finally receive compensation for their music and the store owners are happy because they no longer have to pay hundreds of dollars a year just to play music.  This truely is a “win-win” solution for both the artist and store owner.

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