Worcester Venue Being Sued By Copyright Infringement Groups

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ASCAP is taking legal action on 12 venues across the country, alleging songs are being played without artists being paid.

WORCESTER, MA—Anyone who owns a venue, or runs a festival with live music, is well aware of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Known as ASCAP, this membership association that represents original songwriters has made a push as of late in enforcing payment from those who perform tunes that are owned, and written, by someone else.

ASCAP on Thursday said that it filed 12 separate copyright infringement actions against bars and restaurants in the United States, citing "unauthorized public performance of its members’ copyrighted musical works."

Among the 12 is an action against Ralph's Rock Diner in Worcester, the legendary live music venue on Grove Street.

ASCAP is a membership association that operates on a non-profit basis and represents more than 680,000 independent songwriters, composers and music publishers. ASCAP licenses public performances of the songwriters' songs, collects the license fees, and distributes royalties to the members. ASCAP says that nearly 90 percent of these fees go directly to the composers.

Several attempts to reach Ralph's owner Vincent Hemmeter, who also owns Nick's in Worcester, were unsuccessful.

“When you see a patron at your business bobbing their head along to the music, you see firsthand the value music can add to any environment,” said ASCAP Executive Vice President of Licensing Stephanie Ruyle in a statement. “Music plays a key role in creating an emotional connection with customers; hundreds of thousands of businesses understand that and accept that a music license is part of the cost of doing business. Our goal is to have businesses comply with the law so that our members can be compensated for use of their work, and the establishments sued today have decided not to pay songwriters. By filing these actions, ASCAP is standing up for songwriters whose creative work brings great value to all businesses that publicly perform their music.”


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The Worcester Business Journal also reports that Ralph's is being sued for copyright infringementby Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), which protects the rights of more than 670,000 songs that include those by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, The Pixies, Paul Simon, June Carter, The Flaming Lips and Amy Winehouse. BMI told the Business Journal it had tried to reach Hemmeter more than 70 times since 2015.

The penalty would fall between $750 to $30,000 in each case, according to the ASCAP suit.

Songwriters can get a performance right license under the copyright law, and businesses using the copyrighted music can get permission to use copyrighted music at a venue by also getting a license. The ASCAP repertoire has a repertory of more than 11.5 million works in it at the time. The average cost for a bar or restaurant amounts to roughly $2 a day for the right, according to ASCAP.

“We want every business that uses music to prosper, including bars and restaurants," Songwriter Paul Williams, ASCAP chairman, said in a statement. "After all, as songwriters and composers, we are small business owners, too, and music is more than an art form for us."

ASCAP said that it tried many times to make contact with all of the establishments it lists in the suit, but alleges the venues continue to allow performances of copyrighted material of ASCAP performers without paying the fee.

The following establishments are listed in the suit:

  • Barnacles, Duluth, GA

  • Dante's, Portland, OR

  • High Dive, Seattle, WA

  • Knockouts Gentlemen's Club, Arcadia, CA

  • Legends Sports Bar & Grill, Las Vegas, NV

  • Lunasea, Virginia Beach, VA

  • Mangos Beach Bar, Las Vegas, NV

  • Margarita Jones, Huntington Park, CA

  • Park Avenue, Dallas, TX

  • Ralph's Rock Diner, Worcester, MA

  • Playhouse Nightclub, Los Angeles, CA

  • Tortuga’s Latin Kitchen, Chicago, IL

Photo Credit: Charlene Arsenault