- February 23rd, 2017, 12:05 pm#4890544In Canada, If a DJ is playing music at their booth at a wedding show, the DJ is responsible for having a SOCAN license. The organisers of the wedding show aren't on the hook for any fines, nor is the hotel hosting the wedding show, if you catch my drift. FanEXPO, Canada's biggest convention group, does masquerade/cosplay contests and gives contestants the option to have music played while they're on stage. FanEXPO has never been slapped in the wrist by SOCAN because of the contestants having the DJ play copyrighted music without public performance rights. If they had, they'd be far more strict about the music you can have accompany your walk on stage, if not stop the practice altogether. Lots of other booths/artists have music playing and there's never been a problem. Or if there has been, FanEXPO hasn't taken the brunt of it and thus, allows it to continue.
Considering any other guy in GB kit can play the Ghostbusters theme from their proton pack and the organisers won't tell them to stop playing it... I mean, yes you've got your own booth, but if ASCAP tries to come after the organisers, because they weren't the ones playing the music, their lawyers will easily pass the buck on to you, "We're not responsible for our guests' use of media while at the con; if they used media without proper public performance rights, that's not our problem because we weren't playing the music." At which point it'll come down to your group. ASCAP isn't going to give you guys grief; they're looking for people profiting off of playing media without permission and I would imagine they've been told by SONY to look the other way when it comes to GB groups.
I was a member of the management committee for one of the bars at Canadian Forces Base Comox in Comox, BC. We had a similar concern with regard to movie nights. Despite being a private club, if we wanted to have a movie night and charge an admission, we'd have to have public performance rights to do so. That makes sense because we'd be profiting from the performance of a movie.
If the convention organisers were going to make any extra money from admissions, it would be because they've advertised you guys as a guest and a handful of people decided that seeing you was worth the cost of admission. But then they're coming to see you, not to hear you play the Ghostbusters theme.
If someone were to hear the song as they were passing and come to you and buy a trap that one of your members makes and was selling, that'd be a bit of a different situation; but you'd be collecting money for charity and again, SONY doesn't care about GB groups using their media without rights, so ASCAP shouldn't care either. If they did, you'd likely be able to contact GhostCorps and get an affidavit or something and then ASCAP would drop the case.
So realistically, no-one is going to get in trouble let alone the organisers, but I understand that they see a potential bad situation and are being paranoid in saying no, rather than actually getting you the right answer.
But again, this is all personal opinion based on my understanding of how things work here in Canada. I hope I don't come off as being ignorant of you mentioning specifically that they said no, I just think their wrong to have said no because reasons above. I also have a bad habit of explaining a point, then re-explaining it and I'm sorry if I've done that, too. LOL
Although, depending on how much time you have, you might be able to get in touch with GhostCorps in advance and see what they say about it. If they say you're free to use their material then just print off that email chain and bring it with you; if anyone gives you grief, just show them the email.