Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Virginia

Re: Legal issues with playing music in lobby

Your ownership of a legitimately-sold CD does not give you the right of "public performance" (i.e., playing for a public audience in your place of business). Your background radio is also a technical violation; some fine day you are likely to get a letter from BMI or ASCAP telling you that this is a no-no and demanding license fees. Music law is an area with which I am only generally familiar, and I would be happy to refer you to a specialist to evaluate your situation and options.

Best wishes,

LDWG

Re: Legal issues with playing music in lobby

Yes, there are issues related to playing the CDs in your bank lobbies. The copyright owners of the music on the CDs have the exclusive right to publicly perform that music, among other exclusive rights. Your playing that music in the lobbies would be a public performance that violates the exclusive right. In this regard, you should review the contract you have with the satellite service to confirm that they have represented and warranted that they have sufficient rights to provide you with the music for public performance, and that they would indemnify you against any damages arising from or related to such performance. If you really want to play music yourself, you can seek licenses from ASCAP and BMI who, combined, own the copyrights to practically all music that you might want to play. This is what bars and nightclubs typically do.