Is ASCAP good for the music business, or a prime example of the divisiveness that has been so crippling in the digital era?

ASCAP is no stranger to aggressive and protectionist rallying cries. But the enemies seem to be everywhere. For years, the performance rights group has been rallying its members to diffuse the influence of more progressive copyright (or, “copyleft”) thinkers like Creative Commons innovator Lawrence Lessig.

In court, ASCAP was most recently fighting to qualify a ringtone as a public performance, a conveniently profitable point of view that was ultimately defeated. It has also caught a bad rap – fairly or unfairly – for aggressively chasing mom-and-pop venues, though its shakedown of the Girl Scouts remains notorious.

Now, all of the organizations singled out by ASCAP for allegedly undermining copyright and bilking artists have rather calmly responded with more educated responses. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was the latest one biting back. The group took major issue with the qualification of a ringtone as a public performance, but actually backs a blanket licensing system for monetizing file-trading. “For years, we’ve had a proposal for voluntary collective licensing,” an EFF staffer told Create Digital Music. Oddly, just like the system ASCAP employs to monitor public performance royalties across thousands of business across the US.