

ASCAP running racket against small coffee shops. - DrSprout
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100518/2341299481.shtml

======
DanielStraight
First, there's a more detailed report here:

[http://www.viewnews.com/2010/VIEW-
May-18-Tue-2010/Henderson/...](http://www.viewnews.com/2010/VIEW-
May-18-Tue-2010/Henderson/35878176.html)

Second, I don't understand giving in to these threats. The ASCAP cannot shut
down a business.

Third, I think he has a legitimate claim that this not just felt like
extortion but was extortion. You cannot ask someone to pay for services which
they are not making use of.

------
jdietrich
In Britain, you need a PRS license to play music in any public place. PRS
enforce this obsessively, to the point that offices have to pay unless their
employees only use headphones. Mechanics have to pay if they let the public
into their workshop. An accountant was told that they had to pay because their
radio was audible on the street through their open window.

------
JoeAltmaier
I worked for a hardware company that paid $12 per cpu sold to Microsoft, just
in case it should ever run something Microsoft wrote! So stranger things have
happened.

------
janj
Maybe we need to have an "Everybody Play SESAC Music Day"

