5 ms·
My guess would be music licencing is why it's gone. Too risky. It's one of the only places I've ever had to deal with, where if you play ANY music the big 3 co
by TrueSlacker0 4y ago
My guess would be music licencing is why it's gone. Too risky.
It's one of the only places I've ever had to deal with, where if you play ANY music the big 3 consider it stolen (1 rift is enough according to them) and your legally guilty (USA), with no one ever winning a case against them. It's just pay to play, even with originals.
- cortesoft 4y agoI don't think so, because elevators played licensed music... in fact, the term Muzak is actually a brand name, and they produced music for use in elevators and businesses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzak
- heelix 4y agoYears back, finally realized the elevator in our office was doing a Muzak cover of Metallica's Enter Sandman. Hit me as funny once my brain connected the tune to the originating source.
- fuzzfactor 4y agoDecades ago I knew a piano player who got the gig at a nice atrium hotel piano bar. It was called Beethoven's and you had to be good, even though you were going to be playing instrumentals somewhat in the background. He didn't read music or play classical but he could play anything he heard, was wickedly good at faking it and amazed them at stealthily playing pop tunes in classical style. He would play from 4 to 8, five days a week. They had a beautifully-tuned well-polished Steinway featured in a corner area of the bar that was overlooking the open-air dining room below. The piano was on a little riser and the back walls were smoothly mirrorized other than a small stainless audio jackplate right near the piano stool. Every day he would come in wearing his tuxedo, sit down at the instrument, unplug the piped hotel Muzak from the jackplate, and plug himself into it instead. He could be kind of bold when taking requests from the bar patrons, but down in the dining area it was always a nice background effect. And of course when you used the elevators or the bathrooms, he was live for your listening pleasure. All beautiful, all music, all the time.
- bobthepanda 4y agoStores continue to play music throughout without much issue. I think the answer might be a lot more mundane. Other posters mention that department stores were a big source of elevators that played music. Department stores in the US are mostly dead, and their physical replacements (big box stores like Target and Walmart) are single-story affairs, so they're playing music, just in buildings without elevators.
- wildzzz 4y agoIf you want to play music in your business, you typically need a commercial license to do so. Spotify, for example, offers a commercial account that's more expensive and has most of the same catalog. Other streaming sites offer a similar plan. SiriusXM even offers you a way to insert your own audio clips in-between songs.
- bobthepanda 4y agoRight, my point is that department stores did similar stuff, the only difference is that department stores have elevators and big box stores are generally single-story, so the reason you don't hear music in elevators anymore is because there is no elevator to play the music in.
- AlbertCory 4y agoNo, the store just gets a license for commercial use. Muzak might have been among the first, with "light classics" like Andre Kostelanz. I do notice the background music at Trader Joe's. It's typically upbeat Boomer pop. If they played Ascension they'd empty out the store.
- itisit 4y agoDid not expect to see that namedrop this morning! “Kostelanetz” by the way.
- AlbertCory 4y agotnx, it looked wrong but I was too lazy to look it up.
- amelius 4y agoWhy don't they play ads with catchy melodies though? (Not that I would want that) After all, for a moment they have a monopoly on your attention. The same holds for public restrooms.
- Ekaros 4y agoGoal is throughput. You want people in and out fast and something interesting might combat that.
- bobthepanda 4y agoI think with public restrooms the issue would be association. You want advertising to produce positive associations, and I imagine most people have negative associations with public restrooms.
- ginko 4y agoWhen I travelled around East Asia (Korea, Taiwan, Japan) it felt like every second hotel breakfast buffet used the same album of Studio Ghibli piano covers.
- Ekaros 4y agoI don't think licensing is real issue. The type of music and thus license would be different from other platforms. And getting one for specific use case with unlimited use likely wouldn't be that expensive.