[riversarewet]

This is also true for music on hold (on telephones)

[B Knotts]

And singing "Happy Birthday" in a restaurant, too!

[eno_]

Some things, like licensing songs for karaoke machines and music-on-hold, are cheap and easy. Harry Fox Agency has set up an e-commerce site for paying royalties and they are reasonably priced (although for very low-cost applications $0.08 per song could get to be expensive. In Japan, the going rate for Karaoke MIDI tunes is VERY cheap, IIRC it is about $0.001.) This is the good and easy-to-work-with side of the IPRs industry.

But the whole issue of a CD player in a taco joint being a "public performance" borders on overreaching. The penalties are extorionate, and the fees so paltry it is obvious it's all a slimy game of "gotcha." The only serious money is finding the non-compliers.

The recording industry treats "industrial" users of songs well and gives them good pricing and simple tools for compliance, while consumers and little-guy restauranteurs get ripped off and treated like crooks, and the RIAA wonders why Saddam Hussein is more well-liked. They should buy a clue.