Watch Out All You Rock'n'Rollers

I was surfing around looking for something else entirely, and I came across this entry from a blog somehow associated with the Austin American-Statesman. It cites an Oregon story about a restaurant being sued by ASCAP because it didn't pay royalties for cover songs played by a band on its premises. I don't know how it will all turn out, but there's real concern that the restaurant, Imbibe in Portland, may have to close down to pay the legal bills. If you google Imbibe and ASCAP, you'll find a lot of angry responses, but search around a bit more, and you'll find that ASCAP does this kind of thing every couple of years to provide some sort of cautionary tale for other places that host public performances of cover songs. Imbibe is hardly the first venue to come under fire, and I doubt it will be the last. I suspect that ASCAP may be trying to get a higher profile because of all the file-sharing going on these days, as well, so we may see even more instances of them protecting their turf. The lesson here, I guess, is if you play in a cover band, make sure you're covered yourselves.