By Jenice Johnson
jsjohnson@neighborsgo.com

Clara Walker’s eyes well up with tears when she talks about the possibility of closing the doors to downtown Mesquite’s Rodeo City Music Hall.

“I’ve never made a profit — everything just goes to the mortgage and pays insurance,” she said. “I bought it for an investment. A lot of times, I’ve had to use money out of my pocket.”

But now Walker faces having to pay $3,336 in annual royalty fees to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

ASCAP, along with the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), are music-licensing companies that represent composers, authors and publishers and collect royalty fees for copyrighted music.
ASCAP accounts for whether the venue plays live and recorded music and whether the venue charges admission.

In Rodeo City’s case, Clara Walker said she was contacted by Jason Cunningham, an ASCAP representative, who told her that if she doesn’t pay the fees, ASCAP could take her to court and shut down her business.

Walker has paid fees to SESAC that amount to roughly $2 a day, which Walker said is reasonable. ASCAP has only recently requested money from her since she bought the building in 2000.

ASCAP is basing its fee on RCMH’s seating, which it lists as 400. Walker said the venue seats 330 — and “we averaged 89 seats overall last year.”

RCMH performers and regular patrons have donated funds and the city also is in her corner. Greg Sowell, a former city spokesman, said that Mayor John Monaco’s office has tried multiple times to reach ASCAP.

“We understand their point, that they have members and copyrighted work, and we want to comply, but we think that the way they are scheduling doesn’t represent the operations accurately for what RCMH is doing,” he said.

In comparison, Mesquite Parks and Recreation Department pays $1,219 a year to ASCAP for its events, and Sowell said that RCMH “has a lot less traffic.”
“We would like to talk to them and open a dialogue to see what can be negotiated,” he said.

Several attempts were made to reach ASCAP representatives. One call was returned and a representative said someone would call back. At the Feb. 24 press deadline, neighborsgo could not obtain comment from ASCAP.

In a recent interview with the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World Record, ASCAP spokesman Vincent Candilora said that his organization only sues for copyright infringement “as a very last resort, and normally after a year of pursuing it. We give them every opportunity to comply with the law.”

Bill Lee, SESAC’s senior vice president of licensing, said his organization wants to keep fees reasonable. SESAC takes in consideration that the Mesquite venue has a “substantial lower number of seats” and bases its fees on half of the number of the total seating, he said.

“I don’t think many of our songwriters believe they get paid enough, and I don’t think many of our licensees think they pay too little,” he said.

Jenice Johnson is the neighborsgo section editor for Mesquite. E-mail Jenice at jsjohnson@neighborsgo.com. Got a story, photo or video to share? Post your news directly at neighborsgo.com. Got a story idea? Send it to Dawn directly. For more about how neighborsgo.com works with our neighborsgo print editions, please visit neighborsgo.com/help.

MORE INFO

Rodeo City Music Hall is hosting a special show to raise funds for the royalty fees at 2 p.m. March 7.
The show will include country, gospel, bluegrass and oldies music as well as a spaghetti dinner provided by Applebees.
Tickets for this show are $15 and may be purchased by calling RCMH at 972-285-9343. Visit rodeocitymusichall.
com for more information.