You have to pay public performance fees. That's been around a long time, long before ipods or CDs.
I have no problem with people being paid for the use of the things they create. I didn't know that was suddenly considered a non-conservative idea.
The RIAA has no claim to performance fees. Perhaps the person was referring to ASCAP or BMI?
The bar ALREADY pays protection money to ASSSSCAP and the RIAA goons.
This is about RIAA goons going in and separately shaking down the DJ for playing “bootlegged” songs (unless you can readily prove that you purchased each of those songs from itunes,etc, or can lay your hands on the CDs. And even then they may say “not licensed for public performance” even WITH the bar’s own music license through the companies.
And since there is no tallying of which artists/songs the DJ played, the protection money paid by the DJ and the bar to ASCAP, BMI, and the RIAA will never trickle back to the artists who WERE spun that night.
The artists get ripped off.
Then again, ASCAP refused to publish rock and roll, country, and R&B in the 1940s and 1950s and then threw up claims of “payola” (which had ALWAYS existed in the industry when there only was ASCAP). But suddenly BMI was around, publishing the songs that the other agency wouldn’t.
it is about control. It is not about paying the artist. You are sorely mistaken on that point even if you do mean well.
I'm always amazed at how quickly conservative principles leave the room when these RIAA threads appear.