[cisco-voip] Music on hold from the airwaves

[Mike Armstrong]

For those interested, here's part of the answer.  Let me say at outset I am 
not an attorney, your mileage may vary, caveat emptor, etc.

All the world's music is controlled by 3 organizations:  BMI, ASCAP, and 
SESAC.  BMI claims they have 52% of it in their catalog, ASCAP claims "the 
majority", and SESAC says they have no idea.  All agree, however, that 
together they own the rebroadcast rights to everything.  (I'm sure there's 
some GNU-type music somewhere, but if you do have to pay someone for the 
right to use a particular song on your music-on-hold system, you have to pay 
one of these 3 outfits.)   It turns out that my problem is thus solved, 
since we have such contracts with all 3.

I said "part of the answer" above because all these agreements provide is 
the right to rebroadcast music.  If your music-on-hold radio station carried 
an NBA game some night, and it wound up being played on hold, you'd probably 
run afoul of the NBA, the teams, and who knows who else.  The radio station 
itself may not want you to rebroadcast the dulcet tones of their announcers, 
for that matter, although the nice lady at BMI said that in general, radio 
stations loved the exposure that music-on-hold gave them.  I'm waiting to 
see what our local NPR stations have to say about that.

Here's a link to BMI's FAQ; they were by far the most helpful people to talk 
to.  Phone numbers for all 3 follow.

http://www.bmi.com/licensing/business/groupb/faq/musiconhold_answers.asp

BMI: 877-264-2137
ASCAP: 800-505-4052
SESAC: 800-826-9996

mike


> From: "Mike Armstrong" <mfa at crec.ifas.ufl.edu>
> Subject: [cisco-voip] Music on hold from the airwaves
> To: <cisco-voip at puck.nether.net>
> Message-ID: <025201c5cea8$7617b560$400cfb0a at crec.ifas.ufl.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> Is anyone using a radio station source for MOH?  I'd like to use our local
> NPR station, which is appropriate, I guess, for our academic environment.
> What experience/advice does anyone have wrt getting permission to use such 
> a
> source?
>
> Mike Armstrong
> UF/IFAS CREC
> Lake Alfred, FL