RECORDING CORPORADOS KILLING LIVE MUSIC

St Cloud Times - When health problems kept Mike Thole from going on the road, the Sunday night workshops at Bo Diddley's became his musical refuge. Thole, who recently turned 60, suffered several complications from a childhood bout with polio, including arthritis in his back and leg and pain from a recent hip replacement. By this summer, the pain was so bad he could no longer tour with his band, Ring of Kerry.

But the local guitar player still had "The Acoustic Project," the weekly get-together at Bo Diddley's that he'd started years earlier. It was something to look forward to; a place for him to teach some of St. Cloud's less-experienced musicians and help them forge their talents in the fires of live performance - even if the artists frequently outnumbered their listeners.

"We were doing something with a high degree of artistry," Thole said. "We weren't playing 'Free Bird' for some drunk in the back of a bar."

So it cut Thole deeply when "The Acoustic Project" was taken away from him this summer, too. This time it had nothing to do with his health. Thole was told that Bo Diddley's was indefinitely suspending its live music - a staple at the restaurant since 1982 - because a national music licensing company was demanding several years worth of licensing fees from the eatery's owners.

Thole was shocked. He realized he might have covered a licensed songwriter's work at some point during the weekly sessions, but it wasn't as though he were trying to get rich off someone else's work. Bo Diddley's never charged any entrance fees and he wasn't getting paid, aside from the occasional free sub sandwich.

"This one really sucked, because I couldn't even play for a fricking sandwich," Thole said. "I could have done the thing at Bo Diddley's. That was something that, physically, I could still do and loved doing."

Bo Diddley's is not the first local venue to cut live music under pressure from licensing companies.

"Fully 50 percent of the clubs that we were gigging at five years ago have shut down their live music," said Dan Preston of local band Preston and Paulzine.

Within the past three years, Bravo Burritos and Grizzly's Wood-Fired Grill (formerly Bear Creek) in Waite Park ended all live performances after receiving letters and phone calls from licensing companies that their ownership said became progressively more aggressive. Brian Lee, co-owner of The White Horse, said his bar is "seriously considering" doing the same.

"The licensing companies think they're God," Bravo Burritos owner Bill Ellenbecker said. "They call you up and threaten you with lawsuits and demands of money."

There are three major live music licensing companies in the U.S. - Broadcast Music Inc., the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and SESAC (formerly the Society of European Stage Actors and Composers). If a performer covers an ASCAP, BMI or SESAC song in a venue that has not purchased a license from that company, the venue owner could be subject to copyright infringement penalties. . .

Barbara Grahn, an attorney who specializes in copyright and trademark law for the Minneapolis firm Oppenheimer, Wolff and Donnelly, said venue owners don't have much legal recourse against the licensing companies. . .

Jerry Bailey, director of media relations at BMI, said his company didn't always pursue legal action against smaller venues. . . "We have a responsibility to the 400,000 songwriters and publishers affiliated with us to collect all the income they're entitled to under the law," Bailey said. "We take that very seriously."

But Preston said the licensing companies were benefiting only a small number of well-known artists. Because there's no practical way to track how many times an artist's songs are covered live, the live music royalties that ASCAP, SESAC and BMI dole out are based mostly on radio and TV play. "They're protecting Bruce Springsteen, who doesn't really need a whole lot more money," Preston said. . .