Here is a fun fact…Venues, such as bars, concert halls, dance clubs, and lounges that broadcast are required to pay licensing fees to performing rights organizations.   That's right; the song can't be played simply because the DJ owns the album.  The venue needs licensing rights.  The performing rights organizations generally give a blanket license to venues which gives them the legal right to broadcast almost any relevant song. 

It's no surprise that the general public isn't aware of this, but it becomes a problem when a venue owner is unacquainted with this fact.  The blog from the Law Offices of Gordon P. Firemark is reporting that a Providence bar is facing charges for failing to pay for any of the music it broadcast over the course of sixteen years.

The owner of the bar says he wasn't aware that he had to pay to license the recordings to avoid the copyright charges.  The organization bringing charges is the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, otherwise known as ASCAP.  ASCAP provides the licensing to venues for a certain fee (decided depending upon particular venue) and then award the copyright holders (usually the writers or composers) based upon their statistics of how often their copyrighted material was played.