. As announced in a
yesterday by Dave Tat, scheduled to play last Saturday night at the Hexagon, the recently opened nonprofit/cooperative club was contacted last week by a representative from ASCAP. The rep wanted money for a license that, naturally, the bare-bones space doesn't have. Dave Tat and Peter Dragontail both decided to cancel their show as a result. "We received a letter from an ASCAP Senior Licensing Manager John Saracino urging us to obtain a blanket ASCAP license for the Hexagon," Josh Atkins, a manager at the space, writes in an e-mail to
City Paper
. "The interaction so far has not been harassing, but it is apparent to us that ASCAP just wants our money and is not at all concerned with the interest of the type of artists that play at our space (our venue's capacity, which is publicly available in city records, was exaggerated to double its correct size and the number of shows we put on per week was overestimated)."
For now, the venue is planning to boycott music licensed by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, along the lines of the
. This means that artists can only play original compositions and DJs can only play music that's cleared individually with the artists being played. "If we were to pay for a blanket licensing scheme like this, we would have to take a large portion from the admission at our events to pay these fees," Atkins says. "Consequently, performers would get paid less and the money that they should be getting would be going into the pockets of executives, lawyers, and the top 100 or so popular artists that these groups are interested in paying."
