The US has had fees asociated with all public playing of their material. This is why you can't sting happy birthday (traditional, but owned) at a restaurant and they sing their own versions quite often of license free versions like www.thenewhappybirthdaysong.com - but all public performances even via radio are in theory subject to royalty fees.
Is the SGAE a government entity or a private organization? If the latter, then it's not a tax. It's called a performance royalty, paid to copyright owners via the performing rights organization for the privelege of using their music in their establishment. That's why bar owners, restaraunts, etc. in this country have to pay royalties to ASCAP, BMI, etc. if they play music.
i got a bit confused about the article. i wasn't sure who was paying. i think it was the hairdressers so it would be a tax the royalty should be with the station.
I'm not sure but there must be some discount music playing in the Home Depot's and Dunkin Donuts, what crap music they pipe in probably to avoid the fees from playing a radio. The music sounds like original garage bands songs looking for exposure. Personally i couldn't listen to that all day let alone sit in dunkin donuts and read the paper. No wonder everyone wears an Ipod.
It is stupid, this is just another typical method corporations use to try and bully small businesses and people into submission as much as possible. Forget copyright folks, this is all about control, in the games industry corporations are constantly trying to come up with ways to control their customers through DRM. The copyright is just a sodding excuse, for instance, when you purchase a product with DRM in it, you are not actually purchasing the product. You are merely renting it, they want to be able to milk as much money as possible and they don't care how they do it. Internet piracy is actually one of the only things that are beating this kind of system back because the government are in the corporations' pocket. I will say this though, it's not as stupid as the law against oddly shaped vegetables and fruit and being able to prosecute game retailers for selling age restricted games to people without an I.D proving they are older.