BMI's $15 case - Broadcast Music Inc - includes related sample letter to Congress - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, June, 1998 by Marian Horosko

Testimony objecting to the unfair classroom license fees demanded by ASCAP and BMI was heard in July by the Sub-Committee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the House Judiciary Committee in Washington D.C. (see DM October, page 86). Chosen to-give testimony to represent the dance profession was Thelma Showman, an eighty-two-year-old teacher from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, whose fifteen students appear in a public performance every three years. Showman received a bill for $15 from BMI in addition to an earlier $100 intimidation fee she paid last year, although she does not use BMI music. Since then, she has been targeted with letters from BMI threatening "legal action."

We asked former New York State Supreme Court Justice Howard E. Goldfluss to give us his views on Showman's recent harassment.

"On December 16 of last year, Showman received a strong letter from BMI demanding payment of the balance of her music performance license fee. She owed, according to them, $15!

Three weeks later she received a letter from a lawyer which read, in part: `You are hereby put on notice that unless you immediately remit directly to me the full balance due BMI, BMI will aggressively seek a legal remedy to [sic] your willful breach of contract. Be further advised that you may be liable under the agreement for all of BMI's legal expenses incurred in collection of license fees.'

All this for fifteen bucks! Was this just random silliness, or was it a concentrated effort to target Thelma Showman because her testimony before the Congressional subcommittee was so effective?

Obviously, something moved the committee to action. House Bill 789, sponsored by Congressman James Sensenbrenner and Senate Bill 28, sponsored by Senator Strom Thurmond, would require radically revised copyright entitlements which would be fair both to copyright owners and users. There no longer would be guessing games as to which titles create liability. Exemptions would be clarified. Licensing fees would be resolved through binding arbitration. And the Justice Department would be obliged to send an annual report to Congress overseeing music licensing collection.

Naturally it is expected that ASCAP and BMI will lobby aggressively against the passage of this legislation, but the fact remains that Congress and the public have been alerted to improprieties. And, largely because of the dance teachers of America and their thousands of petitions sent to Dance Magazine, and brave Thelma Showman, ASCAP and BMI may take another look at their license fees and the manner in which they collect them."

RELATED ARTICLE: SAVE TIME -- USE THIS EXAMPLE

Show your support. Write your local representative urging passage of Senate Bill #28.

As a teacher with a small business in (city, state) instructing students in dance, I ask you to support Senate 28 and exempt dance schools from the requirement of a license for classroom use if copy-righted music by amending Section 110 (7) of title 17, U.S. Code (11) to include dance education classes as a performance of an instructional nature.

While I support payment for copy-righted music for public performance and the royalty fee at purchase, an additional fee for use of this music as accompaniment to dance instruction is unjust.

Sincerely yours,

(Name)

Howard E. Goldfluss, former N.Y. State Supreme Court Justice, is an author and WOR radio news commentator