JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum An Open Letter To ASCAP

Hello ASCAP.

Although I was informed that ASCAP is not affiliated with the 5,000,000+ strong members of https://reverbnation.com of which imho is the leading artist and musician website and people on the internet anywhere in the free world including US, Europe, Asia, Africa & Oceania too.

In any event, my brand new release "Outshining The Sun" has registrations through Nielsen Soundscan, as a digital release and for each of the 27 songs. Already in a short two weeks, 500+ streams from https://reverbnation.com/williammahler As of today, my release is at every major distributor on the internet, including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music, 7 Digital, Ultimate China, Deezer and almost 2 dozen other massive distributors. How do I make this good with ASCAP so I am actually paid for royalties other than sales that ReverbNation, in good faith has proven to pay before? Which role does ASCAP play in streaming media, downloads and sales in regards to that I've told you in this email?

Honestly, you are the biggest organized behemoth of society as if you are a massive mountain and I am but a grain of sand.

how can it be my music is instantly recognized by total strangers as far away as Raleigh, North Carolina simply by performing 3 seconds of the opening notes to "Regardless" when it originated on Cape Cod with only a handful of downloads in over a year?

How can songs like "Act Of Mercy" be covered and planned for release by Bruce Springsteen on his Tracks 2 project? I heard the song while pumping gas in Hyannis over the loudspeaker above the gas tank.

How can "Prelude To September 11, 2001 - Leonda (I'm Coming Home) be covered by solo artist and drummer for Queen, Roger Taylor? Myself, my then wife and perhaps a dozen other people in a restaurant heard Rogers version of the song and I was directly asked if I knew he did that by a complete stranger. Rogers version was the first version I ever heard of any of my songs. Not too long afterwards, a local artist was at a bar covering the same song as my then wife and I walked in.
How can "Regardless" be performed by The Eagles?

All that has already happened but the mountain you are has not recognized the feats of this little pebble.



How is it you ASCAP claim to have my back, earn billions of dollars yet say you don’t work with ReverbNation, a huge company known worldwide to help almost royalty free artists of every size including Bruce Springsteen, Queen, U2 and dozens more well known established acts from around the globe and of every genre?

Why?

One song, not on the internet since 2016, "Words Called Love" a demo with only less than 20 downloads worldwide was instantly known by a passerby as I played the opening notes on a public piano in Copley Square of Boston in front of the Boston Public Library. Less than 4 seconds into playing the opening notes a complete stranger said the title “Words Called Love” yet out of 7 ½ billion people on the planet, there was less than twenty downloads of the song from ReverbNation in 2014 and my now defunct domain , mahlers dot com.

Yet, not one penny has come from ASCAP but a measly 51 cents at one time and now less than $20 is due me.

What are we missing, what am I doing wrong?

How do you be accountable for the music I am getting distributed worldwide through places I've listed?

What is stopping you from being associated with, affiliated with ReverbNation and how come it hasn't happened already?

I make no apology in thinking you are earning billions from little pebbles like me and we see less than bread crumbs.

Am I wrong?

Please convince me I am wrong.

Call my phone and talk to me or find me to chat with in Facebook or zoom meeting,

https://mahlers.net

Sincerely,

William Keith Mahler
W. K. Mahler Music Publishing Co.
ASCAP Member since 2003

First off, welcome to JPF William! ASCAP has 550,000 members, not 5,000,000.

Yeah, 500 streams, though you should be proud, doesn't pay much. Need more like 100,000 streams from what I've been told. That's just the nature of the music streaming business. If you think about the millions of music streams on the Internet per day, the reality of funding these streams are understandably low. Some other JPFers can probably give you more insight. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the number of streams for my music. I just consider it an extra perk.

Best, John

"I make no apology in thinking you are earning billions from little pebbles like me and we see less than bread crumbs" - William

Hey, pie crumbs can add up William. Yes, I sent Paul Williams a letter complaining about a couple hundred cue sheets that were turned in properly, but I wasn't paid. I was told if their survey system didn't catch them, I wouldn't be paid. Their survey only checks 2-3 hours a quarter for the smaller networks like Telemundo. Yeah, most my publishers think that's wrong as well. The smaller networks don't have the big bucks like the major networks.

John

I'm internet only.
Placing certain material on distribution sites is exclusively for the purpose of what I might suck the least with what I fielded out.
Getting tens of thousands of sales means having a substantial local and regional following.

Places like ASCAP look at numbers and followings.

ASCAP (And BMI for that matter) used to sponsor us now and then in the past. I learned pretty quickly that there were great people involved, but that they had little power to do anything about any issue of unfairness. Though some of the issues were different then than now, I expect the same dynamics are present. Good people being swallowed by the machine and those tiny few who pull all the strings riding them like beasts of burden. Many people see the problems, many people agree 100%. But the same few people run things across all Govt., Entertainment, Banking, War Machine Industry, Big Pharma, Tech Giants etc. All the same people in the same clique.

Short of a mass casting off of the yoke, fairness, common sense and a better way forward is not going to happen. Look for further restrictions, the noose tightening, even less people with any say and scarcity of resources being the next phase of all walks of life. As bad it is will be here, it is unimaginably worse in other places except in one tiny way. We in parts of the West (i.e. those reading this for the most part) will be the only people even aware that a better life was at least possible. In other places, it wasn't. Having it and losing it will be worse in some ways, but the end result will be no one winning, no one thriving, no one enjoying freedom outside the elites, their minions and a small number of their useful traitorous idiots.

What I believed ASCAP to be doing for me since 2003 was actually collecting $$$.

Actually watching what I have no power over, how my music gets from point A to B to C to D. 7.5 billion people on Earth circa fall 2016 and with less than 10 downloads of "Words Called Love" known to happen from now defunct Mahlers.Com back in summer 2004 and with less than 10 streams of "Words Called Love" via ReverbNation and, I say again, 7.5 billion people, there I was performing four seconds of the piano intro, nothing else and a complete stranger in plain view of me yells out "Words Called Love" How that happen and where's ASCAP?

"Regardless" another song recorded and released for 3 months summer 2004 and approx. 1 1/2 years later 1000 miles from my home and studio, at a bus station I performed only less than 5 seconds of the intro, all harmonica nothing else and two people both told me the title "Regardless"

Where's ASCAP.

Bruce Springsteen samples my song "Freedom" released to his newsgroup in GoogleGroups.Com on 9/19/01 as well as soc.culture.usa and alt.music.queen and in 2005 Bruce releases a very twin copy of my harmonica solo in his grammy nominated "Devils & Dust" No credit to me whatsoever and ASCAP refused to do anything at all. IMHO, I am a well placed mini nuke when it comes to attention it seems.

Should I leave ASCAP?

BMI

ASCAP flat out told me ASCAP doesn't do anything with the best indie company on the net, ReverbNation and I'm not leaving Reverb but it appears BMI does.

How say you?

To be fair… for ASCAP’s plus side, their survey does pick up and pay for airings where no cue sheets were turned in. So, it’s a give & take pay-out package. On my statements I see shows that cue sheets were missing from my ASCAP list.

John

I searched ASCAP today and learned Bruce Springsteens "Devils & Dust" is listed but ASCAP has no more anything to do with the song for some time. Evidently someone cut ties..

How do you know that William?

John

https://www.ascap.com/repertory#ace/search/performer/Bruce%20Springsteen/title/Devils%20%26%20Dust "This work has been removed from the ASCAP Repertory except with respect to final written license agreements in effect on the following date(s) (corresponding to each interest referenced above):"

1 01/01/2016

Copied and pasted from ASCAP, that i believe translates, as for that one song, they is a severed, sir! Nothing new from Bruce since before his EP "American Beauty", his album "Western Stars" 2019 and the song "Born To Run" met a similar fate as that of "Devils & Dust" John