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Would you sign this contract ??

would you sign this contract

  • yes

    Votes: 11 5.6%
  • no

    Votes: 187 95.9%

  • Total voters
    195
Again, not really my point. I am a licensed attorney (in NY and CA), and my point is that even if they can’t collect, they can get a judgement.
I understood your point and wasn't disagreeing with it. You may have misunderstood mine.

My point is that having language like this in a contract is unlikely to solve any problems. The most likely outcome in my view is that venues won't attempt to enforce it because doing so is too expensive and time consuming for the result it would deliver. Followed by the scenario you describe, where there are a bunch of musicians walking around with judgments against them and the venues do not have their money. Neither is useful.
 
I understood your point and wasn't disagreeing with it. You may have misunderstood mine.

My point is that having language like this in a contract is unlikely to solve any problems. The most likely outcome in my view is that venues won't attempt to enforce it because the juice isn't worth the squeeze for them. Followed by the scenario you describe, where there are a bunch of musicians walking around with judgments against them and the venues do not have their money. Neither is useful.
I actually don't think you are understanding my point (or we just don't agree, which is fine). It might indeed be useful to the venue (again, probably only if owned by a corporation with multiple venues), because it would cost them very little to get a judgment. Almost certainly the performer wouldn't answer the complaint, and the court would issue a default judgment. Would cost them more than $450, but maybe not much more. Many companies do business this way - you can't just look at the $450 to make the assessment of whether the juice is worth the squeeze. And the clause is certainly worth it to them - doesn't hurt them at all to include it, and they could also use it to apply pressure if they need to.

Bottom line: I wouldn't sign this contract without modifications.
 
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I actually don't think you are understanding my point (or we just don't agree, which is fine). It might indeed be useful to the venue (again, probably only if owned by a corporation with multiple venues), because it would cost them very little to get a judgment. Almost certainly the performer wouldn't answer the complaint, and the court would issue a default judgment. Would cost them more than $450, but maybe not much more. Many companies do business this way - you can't just look at the $450 to make the assessment of whether the juice is worth the squeeze. And the clause is certainly worth it to them - doesn't hurt them at all to include it, and they could also use it to apply pressure if they need to.

Bottom line: I wouldn't sign this contract without modifications.
Me either, but I think we are just disagreeing. Nobody I know has the time to pursue judgments that have little chance of paying.

(Edit: My wife ran a receivables factoring business briefly. It was a misery, so many judgments, so little money. You're probably hearing that experience in my opinion.)
 
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Me either, but I think we are just disagreeing. Nobody I know has the time to pursue judgments that have little chance of paying.
This is what I do, and I see it happen every day of my life.

EDIT: Just to clarify, by "what I do," I certainly don't mean I sue hapless performers. I am not a litigator. But I see this kind of stuff happening for sure.
 
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So, I looked the place up. It appears to be an "upscale" place, more than the contract would reveal. You would think that they would have something better but it must "work for them" :)

It seems that they do have music there regularly..
Tooth & Nail Winery, 3090 Anderson Road Paso Robles, CA 93446 - Google Search


On another note, a bass brother has a one man gig there on Feb 12th.

https://shaunmunday.com/

He is an upscale artist.
Up till NOW when I asked for $450 instead of $400 there was NO CONTRACT , this is a scam to scare us into signing , not gonna happen for $450.

Like I said this contract has been circulating the WEB for years and they just scoop it up modify to purpose and lay it on us .
 
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My company has more than half a dozen hospitals and over 100 small practices. Their answer to something like this will be "Just stop playing music anywhere. We're tired of dealing with it." Now they play trite corporate infomercials in the lobbies with videos we produced in-house that show services we offer and tips on eating healthy and whatnot. In other words, people in our lobbies are looking at their phones these days and ignoring our videos we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce. :D But we ain't getn letters from BMI no more. :thumbsup:
 
There's also another way around this: write and perform all originals! Unfortunately, having done (mostly) exactly that for 35+ years, I recognize you probably wouldn't be playing said winery if that's what you did :)


....or being offered any money.... even the pittance of $450. :cool:

So, play for free and avoid the hassles of BMI, but STILL have to put up with the liability BS and the rest of the contract. Or play for money and have to deal with that wheelbarrow full of manure.

The name of the game is "You Can't Win".
 
I've never heard of a venue suing an act for breach of some petty clause in a ridiculously out of touch boilerplate contract that they were unfortunately so ill advised as to adopt as their "business model."

This whole thing is laughable. Honestly, how many local bar bands are they gonna "sue into oblivion" before word spreads like wildfire that they are the biggest A-holes on the circuit?

The answer? None. This lame contract business won't last, or the venue won't last, whichever comes first.