New York Blog

It's probably worth a clarification here...

The artists are not suing Pianos. Rivers, Zack, Tom, Bret Michaels et al. probably have no idea this is happening. And regarding the headline, BMI is not a label.

BMI is one of several companies -- ASCAP and SESAC are the others -- that collect performance royalties for songwriters. There are too many forms of public performance, from radio play to cover bands to radio stations pumped in to clothing stores, for songwriters or their representatives to track it all and make sure they're being paid what they're owed under the law for such usage of their work. So they sign up with one of these companies, whose sole purpose is to collect and distribute those royalties. (Which, by the way, constitute a very large portion of those songwriters' living.)

Pretty much any venue that will have music playing, from Madison Square Garden to every radio station in the country to most of the stores in your local mall to the coffee shop down the street, is required by law to get an annual license from ASCAP, BMI, etc. which covers any and all music played there. The money from the licenses is distributed to songwriters as compensation for the use of their songs.

And yeah, ASCAP and BMI have to sometimes sue venues that don't pony up for the license. The license is a cost of doing business, just like having soap in the restroom or beer at the bar. And a venue like Pianos only gets sued after they ignore any number of warnings and such.
So regardless of what musicians' names pop up in the lawsuit as supporting materials, you probably oughtn't blame them if you don't agree with a lawsuit filed by BMI.