ASCAP running racket against small coffee shops.

First, there's a more detailed report here:

http://www.viewnews.com/2010/VIEW-May-18-Tue-2010/Henderson/...

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.

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.

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.

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