Kalle Rantaaho
It's the new genre of elevator-music, is it?? Propably very inexpensive to the client (?). On my working trip to Greece in november they played in many hotel restaurants the same set of songs all the time. The songs were of a wide variety, from country classics to Guns'n'Roses, but even the hardest rock songs were arranged for acoustic guitar or piano and performed by a female in a laid-back "lounge lizard" manner.
Very good point, and there are two major issues involved:
1. Economic. There is a law that says you have to pay the composer a licensing fee to publish a record and a performance fee (exception broadcast radio in the US) to play them. There is no law that either the owner of the master recording copyright or the "featured artist" has to contract with an artist rights organization to collect the money, or forbidding them from contracting directly with the streaming service that is playing them. Elevator music can thus be sold as a package of recordings produced with "work for hire" musicians who do not share in any royalties, and can be licensed without having to pay those royalties to the performer or SRCO. Public play of a cover would thus incur only the composer's take thrugh ASCAP, BMI etc., but it would be easy enough to prove that none of the artists or SRCO's was entitled to anything if SoundExchange came knocking.
2. Contextual. Background music at venues where the main activity is not listening to the music is meant to stay in the background. It should not either arouse or distract the listener from the activity he is actually paying for. No one wants a drunken fan standing up in The Olive Garden screaming for them to turn up the volume on his favorite Guns & Roses anthem again. The music is supposed to be even blander than the food and less exciting than the retail shopping experience. As for elevator rides, well most people are not interested in being trapped in a box with music they don't like, just ask the inmates at Guantanomo.