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ASCAP agreed, that the fees negotiated for 1991 would apply to 1992 as well. For 1993, and each year thereafter, the license fees under the agreement would increase only to reflect increases in the Consumer Price Index.

Accordingly, for 1994, the negotiated license fees

under the agreement are as follows:

If mechanical music is performed at any time during the event, the fee is 5.2 cents for each person who registered or paid to attend the event, but excluding those persons required to produce the event, service contract personnel, temporary personnel, accredited members of the media, and one-half of the number of persons serving as exhibitor personnel. If live music is performed, there is a daily fee charged based generally on the number of persons present at the performance but not to exceed $580 per day. (The total

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license fee due for each event is the sum of the fee for mechani

cal music and the fee for live music.)

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The maximum fee payable under the ASCAP license is

$4,650 per event; the minimum fee is $60.

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The agreement also has reporting requirements licensees are required to identify their events, setting forth the specific factors on which they calculated the license fees owed for each event.

The new license agreement was offered to the convention and trade show industry in early 1991, to replace the ASCAP-NAEM form of agreement. ASAE and MPI, two leading members of the

Music Licensing Task Force, provided ASCAP with copies of their membership mailing lists so that ASCAP could readily identify and offer their respective members the new license agreement.

Like NAEM before it, the Music Licensing Task Force requested that ASCAP offer an added inducement to sponsors of conventions, trade shows and similar events to enter into the new license agreement promptly. Accordingly, ASCAP agreed that for those who entered into the new license agreement on or before February 1, 1991, ASCAP, on behalf of its members, would not press claims for copyright infringement arising out of unauthorized performances of ASCAP's members' music occurring at events prior to January 1, 1991; and if such sponsors had previously signed ASCAP license agreements and paid license fees in 1989 or 1990, ASCAP would credit the license fees already paid against fees due under the new agreement for 1991.

NAEM refused to endorse the new form of license agreement for its members based on an objection to the agreement's audit provision and to inclusion of one-half of exhibitor personnel in the formula for calculating license fees due for performances of mechanical music. Nevertheless, NAEM obtained that license for the events which NAEM itself sponsors.

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All the members of the Music Licensing Task Force
have obtained that license for the events

including the ASAE

which they sponsor.

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Embodied in the license agreements which evolved from

all negotiations between ASCAP and convention and trade show

industry representatives was the concept that any license to be offered to event sponsors would authorize all performances presented during and as part of licensed events. All parties understood that the ASCAP license agreement would authorize performances presented directly by the event sponsor, as well as performances presented by all authorized exhibitors (including, of course, those performances presented at exhibition booths in the exhibition halls of a licensed event).

On the other hand, the industry negotiators were

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adamant that event sponsors were not to be held responsible for musical performances by what the industry termed "free riders" those not officially part of a licensed event but who may, nonetheless, set up unauthorized exhibition booths adjacent to or in the vicinity of exhibition halls where a licensed event was taking place. There was no disagreement on this point it was agreed that "free riders" were not participants in licensed events; that their activities were not conducted, sponsored, endorsed or approved by, or presented by or under the auspices of the event sponsor; and therefore, under the ASCAP license agreement, event sponsors are neither required to pay any license fees for performances by "free riders," nor are event sponsors liable for unauthorized performances by "free riders."

Sponsors of conventions, trade shows and similar events cannot rely on the hotels and convention centers at which their events are presented to obtain authorization for performances of ASCAP's members' music at or in conjunction with the sponsor's

convention or trade show. The ASCAP Hotels and Motels License Agreement specifically excludes from its grant authorization for performances as part of conventions, expositions, trade shows or other business presentations at the hotel.

In addition, ASCAP does not have a specific form of license agreement for convention centers. Rather, ASCAP offers convention centers those forms of ASCAP license agreements applicable to the uses they actually make. For example, if a convention center operates a music-on-hold telephone system, ASCAP will offer it an ASCAP license authorizing music-on-hold uses. If a convention center performs mechanical music through ceiling speakers in its hallways and other public areas, ASCAP will offer it a license for those uses. And, if a convention center sponsors trade shows (whether presented entirely on its own premises or at other location(s)), ASCAP would offer it the same form of license agreement ASCAP offers all other event

sponsors

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a license authorizing all performances of music in the ASCAP repertory presented during and as part of the events sponsored by the convention center.

To sum up, the ASCAP license agreement for conventions, expositions, trade shows and similar events enables sponsors of such events to assure themselves and their primary customers, the exhibitors, that all performances of ASCAP music presented during and as part of the licensed event are properly authorized.

Some event sponsors now assert that exhibitors at their trade shows and conventions should be compelled to obtain author

ization to perform music at the exhibitors' booths.

Under such an approach, exhibitors who want ASCAP licenses at reasonable fees should write to ASCAP to apply for licenses and so invoke the procedure set forth in § IX of the 1950 Judgment. But, even if all exhibitors at an event sought and obtained licenses, the event sponsor still would need its own license for performances for which it is solely responsible. Surely, the convention and trade show industry's representatives had the value of a single all-inclusive license in mind when they negotiated and endorsed the current ASCAP license agreement for conventions, trade shows and similar events; and they no doubt considered that they could easily cover the cost of an ASCAP license in the rental fees charged exhibitors.

During our negotiations, the industry's representatives often stated that sponsors of conventions, trade shows and similar events always had taken the performance of music at their events for granted as "free," and that having not been asked in the past to pay for the right to perform music at their events, they would resist paying such fees now. ASCAP was prepared, therefore, to undertake a concerted educational effort to increase compliance among previously unlicensed event sponsors. Thus, ASCAP has attended, at ASCAP's own expense, every industrysponsored forum to which we have been invited and at which we could explain the license and licensing procedures.

Despite the foregoing history demonstrating apparent hostility toward ASCAP on the part of the leaders of the conven

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