Just yesterday I got into an ugly argument with some owner of one of those clubs in Second Life. Why? Just because I complained against a DJ who was spinning at that time hiding their tracks from local chat and couldn’t play a particular song I requested them. Many DJs do not take requests. If some of them happen to do so, the quality of their music suddenly declines (hilarious?) when they squeeze in that song at some point during their “mix”.
I was the one who took a DJing class from the co-owner of the same club only to learn how they illegally (playing copyrighted music without paying royalty fees and not bothering to verify if a legally obtained license is required to stream music inworld to an audience) spin music. Just rip it off youtube and hide the titles! Oh and you can also spin other real DJ’s live mixes all available on youtube. Be subtle and steal. SAM broadcaster doesn’t need to be legally downloaded. You can use free ones too. Those were some of the lessons taught by them. That’s how anybody can become a DJ in Second Life and start earning lindens that can be converted to real money. Okay. This is almost equal to hosts using automatic greeters instead of greeting people manually or clubs using bots to raise traffic. Oh and these DJs and club owners supporting them are immensely proud of themselves.
Isn’t it just better to listen to original music on youtube instead of supporting the illegal activity inworld? That way we can only have the most genuine DJs who exist in Second Life and way fewer clubs where hardly any set will ever go tipless.
Also read:
I’m a DJ or Club owner, do I need a license to broadcast music?
Music Licensing Issues in Second Life
DJ Tip – Performance License, Do I Need One?
The Basics Of DJ Copyright Laws
Update (14 September, 2017): What are the legal requirements to DJ in SL?
Blog Veridical 
“ASCAP does not license DJs. It is the venue, establishment, or promoter of an event that is responsible for public performance licensing, not the performer. Private events such as weddings, etc. are exempt from licensing.” – Bryn Caryl, ASCAP (In this Case it would be Linden Labs)
“BMI licenses the “public performance” of music… events such as private parties and weddings are not required to have a license.” – Jaqui Garlan, BMI
(there is a big argument here that Clubs in SL are considered Private because you have to Join the Host to attend the Host being Secondlife..there by it is not a public proformance because its not open to the public at large)
“Royalty fees are not collected for private performances.” – David Derryberry, SESAC (Same as the one above)
That said the people that write blogs and posts bashing Djs really need to stop being their own lawyers and stop trying to interpret laws on their own , half the shit they write is BS (Such as the title requirement to be broadcast, there is no such law that requires it , no virtual DJ , no radio channel , no live DJ no one is required to give the names of the artist or song , those of us with License know this but these Blog writers do not they try to enforce made up laws , the only thing that is required is that the venue send a list of all songs played for the event to the organizations so royalties can be sent out ) you can easily pick up the Phone and Call ASACP, BMI and SESAC and ask their legal teams the questions they will give you the above answers. Also for the Title listings of songs not all mixing software can do it , some of us dont use Virtual DJ or Sam or the other virtual world DJing equipment some of us use Real DJ software such as Serato with real DJ controllers from Pioneer our SOftware doesnt even have a built in Broadcaster we have to use EDCAST reborn are another outside broadcaster to get the music in.
Now where i do agree DJs who play Youtube rips rather its songs or youtube rip full sets should be black balled and called out. I pay for all my music but i also live mix and dont just make a play list going song to song but hey those YOUTUBE DJS are superstars and make the most money in SL.
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While Youtube is a great form of entertainment, DJs in SL who download their music from there are breaking the law. In or out of SL, if I get a request and I do not own a song, or can’t buy it quickly, I will not play it. I have pissed people off in SL by telling them I will not download from Youtube. It’s my choice to not break the law, despite what they feel I should do.
As far as what Zoey has said, If the DJ lives in Canada or the UK, they MUST have a license to play the music even at private events. That is the rule of their countries, not mine.
SL falls into a slippery slope of public vs private. If you advertise your SL club event only through internal platform notices, then the performance can be considered private.
However, the moment that you post the event on Second Life Events Page, it carries out through the web and becomes indexed by Google, Bing, etc. Anyone can find it and decide to make an account. Therefore, according to people I have spoken to at ASCAP and BMI, you have turned that event to “open to the public”. This includes listing the event on other social media avenues that are open to the public to view. If you post it to your FB group/business page, and that is set to members only, that is considered an exception.
I called them a few years back and actually asked the questions about the Second Life platform specifically. The thing with lawyers, if you don’t ask a specific question about a specific topic, you will get the pre-programmed mundane answer from most.
I find it ironic that the commenter above me calls out bloggers for trying to be their own lawyers… does that mean she has a law degree and has passed the Bar & MBE/UBE? Just a harmless thought since she is also interpreting the law herself.
How many of the SL club owners do you work for actually send that report in for royalties? It would be interesting to know that intel.
How many SL club owners actually have licenses?
As a side note, if you do have the required licenses, you can report the songs you play through Sam to ASCAP, BMI, etc by hitting the Tools menu – Reports.
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I know this is a years old comment, but buying a song does not give you license to rebroadcast said song. So whether that song was downloaded from YouTube, played from a personal Spotify account, downloaded from iTunes, or ripped from a CD, is still an illegal use of it.
The license provided by purchase is a personal usage license. You cannot use them for rebroadcast, remixing, or reuse for public performance. As said by the first poster, it’s usually the venue that is intended to provide the license for the performers. That’s because of how royalty payments work.
When you pay for your one-time personal use fee to own a song, that only accounts for your personal rights to have the song and play it for yourself. The moment you play said song at any venue, private or public, you start running into rebroadcast laws. This also includes doing covers of songs if you are a performer.
Now, as said, performers don’t usually get a license since that’s up to the venue. Where the line blurs are DJs. Technically, if you DJ a real club, again the venue pays. But since DJs are using streaming software to act as a broadcast point, realistically every DJ should have a radio broadcast license equivalency from an organization. Now, the next shaky part is where said license needs to be from. As the second commenter said, if the stream was broadcast by Canada, then rules for Canadian broadcast applies (That also includes the MAPL standard as well). However, it could be argued that the licensing should be based on the location of the stream server, as that is the origin point of the broadcast. It could also be argued that, since the primary audience is accessing the venue via SL’s servers that it should be an American based service that is needed for licensing.
Combine that with the small audiences possible in SL (200 listeners at max at any venue), and that’s why you do not see the record labels moving in to try to enforce any rules. Simply put: It’s a legal dark zone. Because of all the possibilities, there’s no guarantee what rules actually apply. The only certainty is that a license is needed, it’s just a matter of guessing which one would apply.
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