Bart Lazar Quoted in Nation’s Restaurant News

Bart Lazar was quoted in the November 14, 2005 issue of Nation’s Restaurant News in an article which details the volatile relationship between music licensing agents and bar and restaurant owners. The article “Music fee agents: Some operators have tin ear for copyright law” describes the difficulties between restaurant owners who are obligated to pay for the music they play to entertain customers, and the agents of ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) who attempt to enforce the law.

One misapprehension common among bar and restaurant operators, the article notes, is that if their establishment is small, they are absolved from the obligation to pay for a music license. The article states:

“While some copyright rules do specify square-foot minimums that may exempt some operators, small places are not universally immune, explained Bart Lazar, a copyright attorney who represents restaurateurs for the firm of Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago. According to Lazar, the Fairness in Musical Licensing Act of 1999 — the nation’s main copyright law that spells out who must pay royalties and gives ASCAP and BMI the authority to collect them — includes an exemption for establishments smaller than 3,750 square feet that rely on television and radio only for on premise entertainment. Some businesses that are larger than 3,750 square feet also are exempt if they don’t collect a cover charge and have fewer than four televisions, and only one per room, and pipe radio music through a maximum of six speakers, with no more than four in any one room.”

Restaurant operators are also irked by the fact that they do not know how the fees are applied or where the money goes. The article continues: “BMI and ASCAP each protect about 1 million copyrighted songs. In the vast majority of cases, operators are paying fees to both groups, copyright attorney Lazar pointed out.”