Thursday, 28 March 2024

DeAmicis: Open mic at the Java Express canceled until further notice

The second Friday Open Mic at the Java Express has been shut down effective this month. It wasn’t wiped out for running a meth lab. It wasn’t given the heave ho for plotting terrorism. No, it was snuffed out for something far worse. They didn’t have an ASCAP license to play music.


ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is the American organization that has the monopoly for collecting royalties on copyrighted music. Everyone from struggling unknown musicians to gigantic record companies has signed exclusive agreements with this all-powerful cabal to charge whatever to whoever and payout whatever to whoever. They decide. The unknowns who don’t show up on their radar will never see a cent from this outfit.


Apparently ASCAP has a huge hit team going around the country putting a big hurt on open mics they haven’t already shaken down, even if they are set up for musicians to play their original songs with an occasional ASCAP-listed song slipping through. They threaten to rain down massive lawsuits for each lapse. The minimum cost for protection, I mean a license, is $388 per year. No deals. Our open mic is supposed to collect this amount from a once-a-month free event where alcohol is not served and where coffee drinks are only offered during a 20-minute break. Do they care? Nope.


Most people would have dismissed one letter making such puffed up demands as computer generated spam not to be taken seriously. But there was a followup letter, then a phone call, and indications that they had already dropped by and cased the joint. They were serious.


The whole heavy-handed action seemed so absurd to regulars of this nine year Clearlake institution that talk focused on theories that this had to be the result of a plot by the numerous political enemies of the proprietor. Conspiracies are not necessary though in a world where teenagers are regularly hauled off by ruthless music conglomerates for downloading songs.


Will the open mic at the Java Express rise from the ashes? Only if the community can find an alternate way to raise money to satisfy this legal extortion.


Dante DeAmicis lives in Clearlake.


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