[Tango-L] Copyright for tango music?

[Brick Robbins]

There are a couple of different issues that are being confused here
(at least in the USA)

1)The right to play the music in public. If one wants to play music in
public, whether for payment or not, one must have a licence to do so.
This includes "background music" in public spaces, such as stores.
This is one of the main reasons that one hears "muzak" in such places,
because the subscription comes with a licence. This licence also
applies to a performer "covering" a song. There are two major
companies that provide licences for this use in the USA, ASCAP and
BMI. There is a third that owns mostly Country Western music SECAM.
Each group has licences for specific songs

> Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 01:44:25 +0100
> From: Alexis Cousein <al at sgi.com>
> Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Copyright for tango music?
> In the US, though, there are statutory damages, and they can be
> much, much larger than "the share of the profit", as people who
> were slapped $25000 damages per $1 song found out.
>
> Not that I don't find the statutory damages excessive (it's very clear
> that US lawmakers have been in the pocket of some copyright holder
> for ages), but they are what they are.