ASCAP is serious

[aborgman]

Ah, no. Not exactly. I say forget about what the PRO's may say they collected from terrestrial radio in 2012, for example. This is 2019 (almost 2020), and PRO's can say whatever they want. Just look at the hard facts.

The performance royalty for airplay (paid to the songwriter and / or to their publisher) as I recall is $0.06 per spin. The numbers you provided propose, "a songwriter/composer makes about $0.08 for every 1,000 streams on Pandora". According to your numbers, Pandora pays more or less a thousand times less per play than the performance royalty to be in rotation on terrestrial radio. That hardly constitutes parity between the radio airplay performance royalty and the stats you cited for "plays" on Pandora.

The performance royalty for airplay is PER SPIN. The performance royalty for streaming is much closer to PER LISTENER.

The average radio spin involves 5,000-10,000 listeners.
The average stream involves 1-2 listeners.

The consensus is unequivocally that Spotify and like streaming subscriptions have wiped out the traditional airplay model ($0.06 per spin)

Radio revenues have been up year on year every year since 2008.

Touring and merchandise are the last traditional way to make money as a recording artist, and that's a tough way to go without record sales to back it up. Surely you are not challenging this well known fact. Are you? Because it's unchangeable.

Performance is the only traditional way of making money at music. Selling recorded music as a revenue stream is a blip of a small segment of the 20th century - a historical outlier, not the "traditional" nature of things.

Incidentally, the two largest terrestrial radio broadcasters in the United States, iHeartMedia, the operator of 850 stations and its rival Cumulus, the operator of 445 stations have filed for bankruptcy reorganization. Nashville has diminished to less than half it's former glory and reportedly, to give directions there people use landmarks such as where so and so's offices used to be, or where so and so studios used to be. The major labels have seriously diminished in size as well. If you haven't noticed, the entire music industry is on life-support. Just saying. Good luck with the release of your new material.

1) Couldn't have happened to better (or more corrupt) folks.

2) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. This isn't a change of tradition - it's a return to tradition.

3) I can release any new material I write 1,000 times easier today than 20 years ago, and 1,000 times easier 20 years ago than 40.

 

[aborgman]

Paying a royalty is different than paying a licensing fee.

That would depend on the structure of the licensing contract.

Some licensing contracts are blanket jobs that involve a single payment. Other licensing contracts involve a per unit sold royalty payment.

 

[aborgman]

acting like ASCAP was the mob.

Well... part of that is ASCAP acting like ASCAP was the mob.

 

[Nevada Pete]

Wow. I'm not even sure where to begin since I'm not sure which "factions" you're referring to, in what way they succeeded, and ................. you know what, never mind.

You don't remember that dispute? It was widely reported in the trades. It devastated professional songwriters. Where were you? In high school?

Sometimes I notice learned professionals such as yourself become enraged when anyone but their group dares to make a statement that concerns their field of practice. The correctness or incorrectness of the statement has nothing to do with this behavior. Some physicians are also prone to this.

Rage on. I've read the rest of your messages. No problem here. Attorney's are a dime a dozen and you can buy one to take any position that happens to be convenient (if you have enough money). I used Jeffery Graubart when I needed an entertainment business attorney. Straight up honest guy. Always treated me right. Who are you?

Who did you say your clients are? When I hire any attorney, the first issue that comes up is, of course, conflict of interest. Fiduciary duty requires an attorney at law to strictly avoid any case that might involve a conflict of interest. On the other hand, the internet requires no such disclosure. Your opinions appear to be highly biased. Fine. I have no problem listening to a highly biased opinion. It's also transparent as window glass.

 

[aborgman]

I'd like to hear your proposal for how this can be done differently.

An online published formula where venue owners can plug in their numbers and buy a license.

Reasonable fees assessed based on potential revenues generated by live music, supported by research documentation.

PRO's have no discretion and must give a license to any venue who pays the fees.

Any interaction between PRO and venues done through legal representatives during normal business hours.

The only part of this that seems at all like a shakedown is the fact that representatives randomly visit the venues to make sure they're in compliance with the law. That's the law, as in, those things all of us get busted on if we don't follow them. But everyone wants intellectual property rights to be no man's land and for those laws to be breakable without reproach.

Intellectual property laws are civil torts, not crimes.

The punishments should be limited to demonstrable damages incurred.

 

[aborgman]

There are also requirements for licensed venues to report set lists.

In the USA - this is false.

Venues (and mostly only the largest ones) are sampled.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

Who knew that the “No Staiway” signs were really about licensing.

 

[Nevada Pete]

And you "bass" that on what?

Radio pays huge blanket fees that go into big pots at ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. From each of their pots, the PROs make determinations as to who gets what based on a huge number of factors. It's about as inexact a process as you get. I am not aware of any information that could support a per-spin rate, but I'm happy to be educated.

I did say, "as I recall", inviting anyone to refute that number. I'm sure I've spent more time than you have in the company of world class recording artists many of whom employed me, and that is a number I recall being bantered about. I would not argue the point that this may not be the most reliable source of information on the subject! If my number is incorrect, I will gladly stand corrected.

The real issue as I very clearly stated is not performance royalties, per se. The real issue is that the streaming phenomenon has wiped out mechanical royalties as a source of income for recording artists. Refute that. Go ahead. We're all waiting. Roger Daltrey, Taylor Swift and members of Fleetwood Mac, for example, have all come out with strong statements very similar to what I have proposed on this thread.

Taylor Swift got so mad she pulled her entire catalog off the streaming services and encouraged everyone else in the business of recording music to do the same on the basis that there is no money for the artist in streaming. Evidently, she has relented and put up her new album for streaming. The tunes on that album reportedly occupy 20% of the Billboard top 100. That's pretty amazing. It's happened before. But not often. The fact that Swift relented and put up her new material for streaming brings up the point that we don't know what kind of deal she was able to negotiate to make her change her mind. Taylor Swift's experience would not apply to that of a new artist releasing new material.

Fleetwood Mac is also reportedly planning on releasing new material. How they will go about that we don't know yet. But maybe the top tier recording artists can negotiate a different rate from the streaming services than us mere mortals. It is interesting, though, that Sheryl Crow who has several platinum albums to her credit has recently released a new album which has sold 10,000 copies (downloads and CD's, I presume). These days that's quite an accomplishment. Which is my point. What's so hard about that?

Oh, wait. You don't think I'm supposed to make a point. I offer no apology. I'll make any point I want, and if you can't refute it while remaining within the arena of ideas, that's on you.

 

[51PRI]

Who knew that the “No Staiway” signs were really about licensing.

Yeah, but the sign should say "Public Domain Songs Only."

...I would much rather get the royalties directly from the venue than have it paid to a third party who then takes their cut and passes a little back to me...

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

If I were to open a bar, it would be a sports bar.

Wouldn't you have to pay licensing fees of some kind to broadcast sports programming in your theoretical bar? Is there ever a free ride?

Exactly. As if paying for live bands isn't enough of a problem, now you have to worry about some lawyer shaking you down. The heck with live music. Nobody wants to hear it anyway. Most people would rather watch football and be able to hear each other talk.

Maybe, but the bar would have to pay to show football games.

 

[Darth Moley]

They are busting all kinds of businesses.

I do contract work for 71 offices in Eastern NC. Several of them got busted for playing music throughout the office where "the public" could hear it. Word came down from "on high" that they could no longer play any music throughout the business. They have to be sneaky. If a receptionist wants to play music behind her from a speaker "for herself", and the public may hear it in his/her vicinity, then OK. But they can't play music through ceiling speakers without paying BMI/ASCAP fees.

Spotify and YouTube pay almost zero to artists. Unless you fill stadiums, you're going broke. My kids were talking about some boy who is a "YouTube star" with millions of followers. They Googled up his net worth, which turned out to he roughly a quarter million (5 years into his "success" on YouTube).

Artists gotta make a buck somewhere. We don't "deserve" free music.

My advice.... If you're a fan of an artist, BUY their work. BUY IT. Order a CD. BUY a download of their albums. PAY them for the joy their music brings you.

If you listen to hours and hours of music a month on Spotify or YouTube (or any number of streaming platforms), and don't BUY any music from your favorite artists, you are part of the problem, not the solution.

Edited to fix half a dozen typos.

I still like having physical copies of CDs (I don't trust Apple/Google/etc to not suddenly decide to cut access to my account and thus my collection) and like to make my own mp3s from them. Gotta admit though, it's getting harder to find CDs. I miss the days of having a choice in record stores to drop into to buy my albums!

 

[Darth Moley]

Soooooooo.....
If a venue had bands that only played original material,and no other material was played where the public could hear it ,then licensing would not apply ?

I just wonder how much is being fed to artists, and how much is being fed to lawyers and executives.

I'm sure it's a 50/50 split. 50% to the lawyers, 50% to the executives.

 

[JimChjones]

I'm sure it's a 50/50 split. 50% to the lawyers, 50% to the executives.

Do you have any evidence at all for that assertion?

 

[Music Attorney]

So everyone keeps saying. How do they determine the distribution of these fees they are taking?
If they aren't going to the actual copyright owner of the songs being played, which I find highly unlikely in a live bar band situation, it should go directly to the people playing. Anything else is incredibly hard to justify.
But please enlighten me.

Have you read through this? Invalid Link Removed

 

[Music Attorney]

These two posts effectively contradict each other, don’t they?

Nope.

You said "ASCAP/BMI really funnel all of that money to labels and large publishers." As I and others have tried to point out, this is about songwriters and publishers. see
Invalid Link Removed Therefore, no they (ASCAP/BMI) don't funnel all that money to labels.

You also said "they are not sending small-frys any of that club licensing money." This is not true. Please see previous post for link to claim this money from ASCAP.

 

[Music Attorney]

Just wondering if this is primarily pursued by firms for profit ( for themselves) ,or to actually protect artists.

Is the intent to protect artists interests genuine, or is it taking advantage of laws for profit. Like patent trolling.

If the intent is genuine that's fantastic.

Reading through this it's not clear to me what you're asking. Happy to try and answer if I can get a little more clarity.

 

[Music Attorney]

Having trouhle with showing the posts, but I did not respond "Yep" to the post below as indicated in Ross Lovell's post.



↑
I was just thinking, rather than have a separate "union" for collection of royalties and multiple smaller unions repping musicians directly, why not have a national union and every member is responsible for policing the misuse of copyrighted material. Musicians are busy but I don't know a single successful independent contractor or self employed individual who isn't, especially if the amount of work is in direct proportion to your earnings.
Or maybe require anyone who wants to play in public become a union member and part of that responsibility is to self report the songs you cover and pay a flat rate per song based on a percentage of what you earned to play that song, say one percent. You play a typical bar night and make a hundred off a 40 song setlist, you pay forty bucks for the use of those songs. To keep everyone honest, kick them out of the union if they refuse to pay. They can still play, but only original compositions and they have no authority to collect on the use of that material because they are not a member of the union. In short, give everyone making the music a stake in the game and quit relying on someone else to collect your money for you except for someone in the same situation. If music venues didn't have to pay all the enforcers, they can afford to pay bands a little more so paying to use someone else's music won't hurt the bottom line as bad for everyone involved. In an era where you can reach the world from anywhere you have a connection to the internet, you could even take it one step further and put all member music in a single location and anyone who wants it has to go there to get it and any money earned goes directly into the song owners account less a small admin fee to keep the service up and running.
It seems if musicians took advantage of the technology currently available and worked together, all those billionaires paying you a couple cents a song would need to find someone else to exploit.
↑

 

[Music Attorney]

So Music Attorney........with the advent of 360 deals where the artist is doing more of the work with an attorney, what is the rationale and justification for the ASCAP fee still being so disproportionate?

Seems like when a service has a cost benefit ratio that is this poor with all the new deals around, it needs to be reexamined?

This is a leftover from "The Payola" days.

No clue what a 360 deal has to do with ASCAP fees. Apples and Oranges. ASCAP and other PROs have a very limited function to collect a very specific kind of income on behalf of songwriters.

How is the cost/benefit ratio for ASCAP poor? And what "new deals" do you suggest as a way to collect performance income for songwriters?

 

[Music Attorney]

Welcome to talk bass.

Thanks. Been here since 2004.

 

[Music Attorney]

You don't remember that dispute? It was widely reported in the trades.

Great. So maybe you could send me a link?

I used Jeffery Graubart when I needed an entertainment business attorney.

I haven't interacted with Jeff much and it's been awhile, but I seem to remember him being a good dude.

Who did you say your clients are?

It's not relevant to the discussion and I've previously explained why I don't mention them. And if that's meant as an attempt to undermine my credibility, then you fit in nicely with the current sport going on in Washington.

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

And you "bass" that on what?

Radio pays huge blanket fees that go into big pots at ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. From each of their pots, the PROs make determinations as to who gets what based on a huge number of factors. It's about as inexact a process as you get. I am not aware of any information that could support a per-spin rate, but I'm happy to be educated.

Is being a member of ASCAP mandatory? Or is it a "tollgate" for getting radio airplay?