New York, NY, Feb. 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VNUE (OTC: VNUE), a live music technology company, has teamed with the Fairness in Music Licensing Coalition (FMLC). The FMLC is a non-profit organization devoted to making public performance music agreements more transparent and fairer for small business. FMLC members want to reform the outdated and substandard licensing process in the U.S. that is used by performance rights organizations (PROs) such as BMI, ASCAP and SESAC.
Currently, PROs require thousands of small business owners across the country to pay for general public performance license agreements to avoid being sued by the PROs for playing live music, recorded music, karaoke or even televisions or radios in their establishments. Despite the PROs collecting billions of dollars in annual royalties, general public performance license revenues are not distributed to writers and publishers on the basis of what is actually played at venues, but instead by proportional calculations known only to the PROs.
“It boils down to what many people in this industry call ‘legalized extortion’,” says Zach Bair, CEO of VNUE. Bair is in the unique position of having owned venues in Memphis, and has also developed a deep understanding of rights management and the music business over the years as president of DiscLive, the pioneer in “instant” live recordings, and during his tenure at EMI/Capitol Records.
“The venues want to support musicians, but the lawsuits can put them out of business. Additionally, the revenues don’t necessarily end up in the pockets of the songwriters anyway, due to opaque PRO royalty payout procedures,” says Bair.
“Unfortunately, there are many problems with how these blanket licenses are calculated,” says Scott Ellis, FMLC Director and Executive Director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association (MLBA). “The entire process is opaque for both small business users and songwriters.”
A major issue with the blanket agreements from the music industry side is that PROs have no way of tracking which songs are played at small business venues. Without accurate performance data, they cannot accurately apportion license fees to the correct songwriter. VNUE seeks to fill this void by developing patent-pending technology that would bring transparency to the public performance marketplace.
This technology, called “MiC™” for “Music Identification Center,” will identify music that is played in venues, whether it is live, recorded, karaoke, or some other form of performance. It will track the plays and provide complete transparency for the content owners and PROs, as well as the business owners. This is something the industry currently lacks, and an area which Bair believes will ultimately help the PROs do their job better.
“Virtually everything in music these days is digitally tracked,” says Bair. “When you play a song on a digital jukebox, it is logged; when the radio station plays a song; it is logged. This logging creates an accurate way to track plays and therefore a relatively transparent way for writers and publishers to know they are being properly compensated. MiC will similarly identify the music played in venues, and track it much the same way. With MiC, songwriters and publishers will finally know exactly what is played in venues, and can be accurately compensated for those plays.”
“We believe that the three PROs together collect as much as $3B or more a year in total royalties on behalf of artists, with BMI and ASCAP collecting over $2B alone. Because of the licensing issues, there is probably a large amount of money is left on the table,” continues Bair. “VNUE plans to help capture this revenue with our with our patent-pending technology. We expect this to evolve into a $500M a year business. As the first mover with a true solution tracking music plays in businesses and venues, our goal is to own a large part of that market share.”
VNUE plans to begin beta testing MiC later in the year.
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About the FMLC
The Fairness in Music Licensing Coalition (FMLC) promotes and advances the interests of small businesses and organizations impacted by the current process for assessing music licensing fees. FMLC is the only advocacy organization exclusively focused on making the music licensing system simpler, fairer and more transparent for small businesses in the hospitality industry. For policy updates and more information on the association and its activities, visit the Fairness in Music Licensing Coalition on the web at www.musicfairness.org
About VNUE, Inc.
VNUE is a music technology company dedicated to further monetizing the live music experience for artists, labels, writers, publishers, and literally all stakeholders, by creating new and exciting products; by leveraging automation technology and second-to-none experience in the instant live space; and by identifying issues such as lack of transparency with performance rights organizations and solving this through innovation and our patent-pending solutions. The VNUE team is the most experienced in our space, a group of technology entrepreneurs, artists and songwriters who are passionate about the future of the industry, and ensuring that the value of the rights holders are not lost in the context of new and ever-changing technology.
Forward-Looking Statements
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