Roku Developer Program

[kelvinbrown]

I have a channel currently.

From time to time, I will be covering things like local parades, to broadcast on my channel.

My issue is that often these events play music during the events, such as dancers performing, or just some boombox in the backgound.

Can you tell me what if any type of licensing I need, from say, ASCAP?

[JOKERJOKERtv]

I a would like to know this too

[caldev]

For public performance you’ll need to get a license with Sesac, ASCAP and BMI. BMI operates under a consent decree because they act like the mob though so need to be careful. Once you contact them they will persist until you reach an agreement. Any performing rights org that operates under the consent decree has to let you use the works in their repertoire if you request it in writing. It’s up to you to negotiate terms or just agree to their terms. Good luck.

[caldev]

For your use case it's probably about 300 per year with no reporting for each of the 3. 300x3 for just music during an event of parade. Just a guesstimate. Be careful, though, this could open a can of worms if the event itself has not established licensing. You'd get them into trouble.

[zpinternational]

 and BMI! I just got an email from BMI saying 3 of our channels need to be licensed. Well, we use only Audioblocks (Storyblocks) music for all of our original programs. We use it exclusively. The rest of our shows are public domain. How do we qualify as public performance? Are they going to blanket call streaming a public performance? Last thing I need is to pay another fee. Barely making it month to month now like most of us!

[Wallattic]

I license content for my Roku channel from Film distribution companies. Am I required to pay BMI too for music within other peoples films that I already license?