The restaurant is being harassed with bills from RE:SOUND.
They claim to represent artists and send out invoices - dating back to 2003 - that attempt to collect royalties on background music played in your establishment. Now the simple fact is is that background music will help artist sales - if it's good, and if it's lousy, well, the business might not be around long enough to pay ....
Exposure helps artists. It's that simple. Free exposure, like that done by restaurants and shops that play background music - is terrific. Or was terrific, until RE:SOUND started billing....I'd be curious to know what percentage of the collected earnings actually go to the artists getting the exposure (as RE:SOUND has no knowledge of what music you're playing, how can they attribute royalties correctly?). But those questions are really irrelevant, what is important is that they collect money, and like the complacent Canadians we are nothing will be done about it ...
Link: RE:SOUND
Media: Calgary Sun, CBC