b.cognosco

I guess folk music is having some sort of resurgence -- I don't know much about it -- but there is a little coffee house in my exurban neighborhood that's been hosting live folk music for a few years. I've been told it's pretty good, if you like that sort of thing.

One thing I do know is that the little coffee house has been in a protracted legal battle with ASCAP -- the The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers -- over royalty fees. ASCAP and BMI run what can charitably be called legalized extortion rackets which operate on the same "voluntary" principles as the Teamsters Union.

Artists appearing at the coffee house play original folk music -- their own compositions -- and the coffee house plays only CDs it gets from the artists themselves. So there are no royalties owed to any Music industry extortion service. But that doesn't matter to ASCAP. As far as they're concerned, if you play music you must be infringing someone's copyright and for a flat fee they'll license you against all "piracy", passing the money along to an artist of their choice (after extracting their hard-earned service fee, of course.)

Just one more symptom of a terminally ill industry.

Private homes are nano-venues for e-folkies. Folk-music has found a renaissance is the most nano of micro-venues: people's living rooms, promoted by listservs.

Concert-goers bring the chips, dip and beer. A basket is set out for the suggested $10 to $12 donation for the musicians, and the living room, dining room and family room are filled with people wanting to hear folk music.

With few venues willing to hire folk acts and few middle-class suburbanites willing to make the schlep downtown, search out parking and elbow other patrons to get the bartender's attention, folk house concerts are quietly spreading like wildfire with the help of e-mail and Internet advertising.

Link[Boing Boing Blog]