(LONDON) You won't believe how Biggin Hill Airport Byelaws have been revised. The Honorable Elvis impersonator Dave Quinn (pictured) has been shown the door.
Absolutely no buskers or even beggars!

(CAPE TOWN) Buskers and street-performers are busy celebrating City Hall's decision to legalize performing in Cape Town.The South African city made news earlier this year when blind busker Lunga Nono was beaten by metro police for busking in St. George's Mall.

Charges against the busker have recently been dropped in favor of new legislation. Nono's guitar was broken in the melee which took place in front of his family and onlooking tourists. A music shop donated a new guitar to Nono who has filed a lawsuit.

Now that the city has come to it's senses about the performing artists and tourism, just about anything goes. This includes street musicians, acrobats, clowning, comedy, contortions, dance, singing, fire skills, mime, living statues, music performance, puppeteering, storytelling, poetry, painting,...

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(NEW YORK) Central Park buskers at the Bethesda Fountain Terrace have been booted off their long-standing pitch by an effort to establish a food and booze court. The city has posted a new "Quiet Zone" sign there and have been ticketing performers - even handcuffing one opera singer and taking him away.

Parks Department spokeswoman Vickie Karp said the musicians are the problem and have "completely blocked the stairs. The public wants quiet zones and have repeatedly requested quiet places for passive enjoyment of the park."

The food court and bar will feature $8 to $10 beers, $8 glasses of wine, and $7 to $9 sandwiches.

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(from the You've got-to-be-kidding-me Department)
One of the themes of 2009 was that collection societies around the world went nuts trying to charge for anything they possibly could while also trying to increase the rates they could charge. Even banks went wild with their hidden charges.

Remember how one collection society wanted to charge a woman because she put on music in public for her horses? Or how about the woman who worked in a grocery store who was told to stop singing while stocking the shelves or the store would have to pay a performance fee? And, of course, we had ASCAP trying to claim that ringtones were public performances, and mobile operators needed to pay up -- beyond the license fee that was already paid on the recording.

SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, has been no exception pushing for drastically increased rates...

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(NYC) Times Square busker and street-performer Bob Burck has filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against CBS over a 'Bold and the Beautiful' promo. Burck filed for trademark on his act back in 1997. He now seems content to sue mega-conglomerates with questionable legal teams for his livelihood. M & M Mars was his previous infringement suit which was settled out of court.

This time around, he's accusing the CBS network of using a guitar-toting drunken fool in a cowboy hat and underwear to promote a TV soap opera. However, as Bob has mentioned in his "brief" run for NYC mayor, "Nobody will take you seriously without wearing a suit", so he's gearing up for his court date and sending his suit out to the cleaners.


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