Your favorite songs to dance to may have gotten this Boise bar sued
The music licensing behemoth BMI is suing a Downtown Boise bar for allegedly playing music without paying a fee.
It’s one of dozens of lawsuits the company has filed just this year against businesses.
BMI and the companies that hold copyrights to 15 songs filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Tom Grainey’s and its attached bars. Among the plaintiffs: one of the Bee Gees. (Barry Gibb’s company owns at least one of the songs.)
Grainey’s owner Jason Kovac declined to comment when the Statesman reached him by phone Tuesday. He hadn’t yet seen the lawsuit.
It’s far from rare for BMI — short for Broadcast Music Inc. — to go after someone for alleged copyright violation. It has filed at least 33 federal lawsuits in the U.S. this year alone. The business, and others like ASCAP, exist to make sure music copyright holders get paid royalties.
In the case of Grainey’s, BMI accuses the bar of playing or allowing others to play 15 copyrighted songs. Here are the tunes and the performers with which most people associate them:
- “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” by The Temptations
- “Another One Bites the Dust,” by Queen
- “Billie Jean,” by Michael Jackson
- “Boogie Oogie Oogie,” by A Taste of Honey
- “Grease,” by Frankie Valli (but written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees)
- “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” by Marvin Gaye
- “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” by Whitney Houston
- “Mr. Big Stuff,” by Jean Knight
- “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” by James Brown
- “You Can’t Hurry Love,” by The Supremes
- “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” by Aretha Franklin
- “Payback,” by James Brown
- “Make It Funky,” by James Brown
- “Use Me,” by Bill Withers
- “Country Ghetto,” by JJ Grey & Mofro
BMI’s lawsuit didn’t say whether Grainey’s played the studio recordings or whether, say, a live band played covers of them. And the odds are good that a cover might attract BMI’s attention, because BMI holds the licenses to 14 million songs.
Online show listings say live performers played on the dates in question, the weekend of June 23.
Grainey’s at one point had a licensed account with BMI, but that contract ended in June 2015, the lawsuit says. It claims that BMI reached out to Grainey’s more than 30 times since April 2017 “in an effort to educate [Kovac and Grainey’s] as to their obligations” to pay for a license to play copyrighted music.
BMI said it sent cease and desist letters — a warning that a lawsuit is being teed up — but didn’t provide copies of those letters in its filing.
How would they know the songs went out to the popular bar’s dance floors? It appears from the lawsuit that a BMI representative camped out at Tom Grainey’s that weekend and took notes on the offending songs.
Whether the rep caught the Grainey’s spirit and danced or sang along is anyone’s guess.
This story was originally published December 12, 2018 at 5:35 PM.
