BLACKSBURG - Three years ago at Champs Sports Bar, a cheeseburger cost more than $750. But the customer wasn't the one getting charged. The sports bar paid a hefty tab for playing Jimmy Buffett's hit "Cheeseburger in Paradise" without permission from a New York-based music licensing group. Now it appears that at least one other Blacksburg business could face a similar fate. Longtime downtown mainstay Gillie's has unwillingly gained the ear of Broadcast Music Inc., one of three national groups that license music for public performance. BMI, the same group that filed suit against Champs in 2002, represents thousands of songwriters and composers and boasts a catalog of 6.5 million songs. Company officials claim that more than half the music played in America is in BMI's catalog. So every time a restaurant like Gillie's spins a CD or hosts a live band, there's about a 50 percent chance the business, under U.S. copyright law, should be paying BMI for the performance, the company claims.

Jerry Bailey, BMI's director of media relations, says the company has been calling and asking Gillie's to face the music for at least two years. BMI hasn't filed a lawsuit against Gillie's yet. But licensing representatives have been looking into the business and trying to talk to its owner, Ranae Gillie. Bailey said he's sure the case has been referred to BMI's legal department. Gillie said the company's concerns are unfounded and accused BMI representatives of acting like spies as they check out her business. "This is not the CIA," Gillie said. "This is music."

BMI manages the rights to all public performances of its artists, charging not only when a band performs cover songs but also when restaurants play CDs, DVDs, jukeboxes, karaoke machines, radio and television. Bailey estimates Gillie's should be paying between $500 and $600 a year. Gillie said that, if she owes anything, it wouldn't be more than $200 annually. Still, she'd have to pay BMI's mandatory minimum fee of $283. This money would go back to BMI, which takes a cut for expenses and funnels the rest to songwriters, composers and producers based on the airplay songs receive and the top 200 concert tours, Bailey said. Such general licensing money makes up about 10 percent of BMI's annual revenue, Bailey said.

Yet what's pennies to the licensing company is more than a chunk of change to Gillie. It's a matter of principle. She doesn't think Gillie's needs to pay for its Tuesday night old-time jam, where generations-old traditional mountain music is played by whoever brings an instrument. She said constant calls from BMI led her to remove the restaurant's CD player, eliminating one form of licensed music. The business also removed the jam last week, as Gillie and her employees became more nervous about BMI's phone calls. She's also worried that licensing fees would mount quickly. "Before you know it, you're not paying $600," Gillie said. "You're paying $1,800."

Each of the three U.S. music licensing groups comes up with its own rate schedule, said Brendan Flanagan, the director of legislative affairs for the National Restaurant Association. He said the majority of conflicts occur when small business owners think licensing companies are trying to take advantage of them, sometimes by charging them an amount that seems too high. BMI caps its fees at $8,464 a year, but businesses also have to worry about paying SESAC and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Michael Soriano, the owner of Champs, says he's cut checks to all three groups since he was sued by BMI in June 2002. For playing 14 BMI songs without paying a licensing fee, Champs paid BMI more than $10,500 in a settlement, Soriano said. He declined to put an exact figure on the sports bar's payout. Now, Soriano spends more than $1,000 a year on licensing. He says there's no way to check out every single song to see who owns it, so it's safest to pay everyone. But he's not happy with the situation. "It's more like extortion than licensing," he said.

BMI checks into music use at restaurants throughout the country, often starting from tips or purchasing databases of restaurants from a phone directory or state agency, Bailey said. Many Blacksburg business owners say they made sure to pay after seeing what happened to Champs, but there are some that continue to play music under the radar, just hoping that BMI won't come calling. Satellite radio also has become a medium of choice for restaurants in Blacksburg, Charlottesville and Roanoke, as it offers variety but has relatively low licensing costs. In other college towns, venue owners find themselves facing the same questions. The Little Grill in Harrisonburg gets calls from licensing companies about once a month, said Doug Woodhouse, the grill's arts and entertainment coordinator. The grill often avoids the licensing dilemma by playing music written by local artists looking to get some publicity, Woodhouse said. The small restaurant does host live music nearly every weekend, but he said much of it is original. The calls do bother Demir Williford, the owner of Talullas Restaurant in Chapel Hill, N.C. "I think these guys are taking advantage of small businesses," said Williford, who hosts a jazz jam one night a week at Talullas. He thinks the bands playing copyrighted music should be financially responsible, if anyone is. "They're the ones that are playing their music," he said. Furthermore, the jazz played at Talullas is mostly improvised and wouldn't require licensing fees, Williford argued. That's part of Gillie's argument against paying BMI. "When it comes to the jam, I think they're stretching," she said.