However you cut it, it's all about the money.

In the past few days it has emerged that Tauranga is home to a greater musical shame than a limp music scene, saccharine Sundays and cover bands for Africa and this one is all about the money, too.
Before we get to the details, let's look at music - not as artistic expression but as commodity.
It's everywhere, to the point that we cease to be aware of it. There is music we buy and there is music we absorb through movies, TV and ads. Radio stations still fit some between all the yap and gyms use it to distract us from our physical suffering. Bars, restaurants and cafes use it to enhance the vibe and give us one more reason to go to bars, restaurants and cafes. Music is so omnipresent we could be excused for not noticing it. But it is by ceasing to notice it that we come closest to devaluing it.
Hence, we come to the local story.
A couple of months ago, Te Puna's Cafe Paradiso started receiving demands from Phonographic Performances New Zealand to pay their legally-mandated annual licence fee for the right to play recorded music in their cafe. Yes, for those who didn't know, if music is adding value to your business, you have to pay for it. This seems fair: you have to pay for everything else that adds value to your business. Rather than check the legitimacy of the demands, though, the owners binned the requests and ran to the media.
As happens when you let lawyers come knocking, the issue has since ballooned so that now, rather than pay the reported $155 annual licence fee, Cafe Paradiso has sought a moral victory by opting to blare the radio at their customers instead - apparently unaware a licence fee applies here, too.
As PR campaigns go, it's a good one. The headlines are sympathetically David and Goliath but sorry, remember small petrol station owner against big bank? Same story, different scale. It's the principle, they say but the principle is still theft.
But wait, there's more. In an effort to make ignorance of the law an acceptable defence, they tout kindred support from the only other cafe in New Zealand to currently shirk the Phonographic Performances New Zealand fee. Guess where it is: Tauranga, of course.
Described as a ‘major Tauranga cafe' and ‘a major chain franch[ise]', this one wishes to remain anonymous.
Genius. If I were relying on misappropriated goods to tart up my business, I'd want to remain anonymous too. But they shouldn't be hard to nail down, so I'll be drinking a lot of coffee and listening to a lot of ambient music this week as I go detective. I encourage other concerned artists to do the same.
In the meantime, I have some practical alternatives for Cafe Paradiso and their anonymous cousin:
PLAN A: Negotiate your own fees direct with every artist you wish to profit from: guaranteed to be more than $155.
PLAN B: Perform yourself. Musical inability needn't be a barrier as for $20-40 per lesson you'll be playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sooner than you can spell Phonographic Performances New Zealand or count to 155.
PLAN C: Write enough music to see you through. Then, at $50+GST per hour of studio time, bank on getting a good 20 minutes or so of listenable musical ‘product' for your $155.
PLAN D: Whistle extra loudly while you work. No charge.
PLAN E: Free coffee for all recording artists who mandate organisations like Phonographic Performances New Zealand and APRA to protect their works' copyright - definitely more than $155
PLAN F: Cough up the pittance and show more respect to the people who provide your convenient ear candy. Tell me it's not worth the price of one average coffee per week or one meagre muffin.
It seems everyone's making money out of music these days, except the people who actually make the stuff. Thankfully, though, when it's all about money and even the law won't work, we can always leave it up to market forces to sway the argument.

Derrin Richards