We had a similar situation at a small museum I work at. BMI (and
ASCAP) harassed us endlessly. When asked which music in our
exhibitions was under their domain, their reply basically amounted to
all music being under their copyright. Their endless calls and letters
only stopped when our lawyer drafted them a letter stating that all of
the music used was public domain or composed by a former employee who
had granted us permission and that if they felt that we were not in
compliance, they would have to send us an itemized list of the songs
we were using that were under license with them.

About a year later we were in a similar situation and ended up
negotiating a fee for a minimum license.

Other colleagues said they felt as though they were being extorted.

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 7:14 AM, Carol Ely <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> We had our lawyer send a "cease-and-desist" letter to BMI, to try to end the
> harassment. So far, I believe that it has worked - we're off their call
> list.
>
> We had told them repeatedly that we did not do anything on the site that
> could possibly involve them, and they kept calling and writing, to the
> confusion of our volunteers who would answer the phone, think that it must
> be important, pull me out of meetings, etc. Something has to be done about
> this - I hope that the AAM meeting is effective.
>
> Carol Ely
> Historic Locust Grove
> Louisville, KY=========================================================
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