[guyfromfargo]

No that’s not a law. Typically when DJing the venue is responsible for paying the ASCAP and other licensing fees. As long as the DJ didn’t pirate the music they are free to use whatever source of the music they want.

The fun part is paying ASCAP and BMI doesn’t guarantee you have the rights to play any song, just most songs. So you’d have to look up if the song you want to play is in the ASCAP library before you play every song. And if they don’t have the song you must contact the artist/label and get permission before playing it. Obviously this isn’t practical. But it illustrates just how difficult it is to be compliant with copyright law.