JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Another ASCAP Controversy

Okay.. this comes up over and over and over. Here are my thoughts:

If a business has live music to bring people in, and can't afford to pay $1.91 per day of live music in their venue for the rights to play it/have it performed then their problems run far deeper than ASCAP.

Now, there are plenty of disgruntled songwriters who are members of PRO's who feel like they don't get payments they deserve. The system is archaic at best in monitoring airplay. But, I also think a lot of artists have unrealistic expectations of what the value of getting their song played a few times on a local radio station really is/should be. We're talking micro fractions of pennies in many cases. Nonetheless, there are very real scenarios where writers get significant regional radio airplay and never see a payment. There's also great confusion with internet royalty payments which really need to be clearly defined. I also think there needs to be a better balance between keeping the monitoring systems secret (to protect from the inevitable manipulation that would incur if the method was easy to track and abuse) and really explaining how payments were REALLY accrued and why so many writers feel left out unjustly.

However.. all that has NOTHING to do with the case above.. and that's such a typical political ploy used by people who misdirect the anger and suspicion caused by one set of realities and project them on another one.

The issue at hand in the above deals with giving music a value when it is used to enhance the commercial efforts of someone else. If having music in a venue, live or recorded, truly produces ZERO value back to that venue, and enhances their business conditions and customer experiences in no tangible way, then the venue has 2 realities: 1: They shouldn't have to pay for it because 2: they are idiots for using it in the first place if they want to have a successful business. Why do something no one wants and expect it to produce positive results?

But of course.. in my opinion, that's a totally bogus argument. It DOES positively impact the business financially. If musicians are coming to the venue 7 nights a week to perform live music, bringing even a couple fans with them as a group, it's clearly having a net gain far superior to a dollar ninety-one per night. A coke or two purchased per night would have great impact than that. So, let's please stop the bogus hand wringing. It's rings VERY hollow.

This seems far more like a simple pissing match, which, I think bears far more investigation and discussion than the bogus BS floated by both sides.

I've heard a lot of heavy handed examples of the PRO's really terrorizing small venues who simply don't want to recognize their role. It seems like unnecessary antagonism. It's easy to understand why a small venue, who by definition is independent minded in the face of massive corporate chain store businesses (like Starbucks for example) would be offended when an outsider they neither understand, nor respect, comes in demanding money for something they really either don't understand or simply never expected to have to pay because no one ever led them to believe they needed to. When they've been revealed to not know how that part of business actually works in the real world, they get ticked off and get defensive.. and these type of pissing matches materialize. It repeats over and over. Both sides are at fault, but it seems to me that instead of hiring some law firm to drop the hammer so they can threaten an independent business even further, perhaps a different approach MIGHT be in order. Here's some ideas.. just food for thought really:

1. Why can't ASCAP and BMI and SESAC come up with a friendly business oriented educational program on the value of live music to a venue? I am not talking some lame high school quality filmstrip type of thing. I am talking some REAL factual and statistical data that a legit small business could read and learn from. Something that showed factually that live music can positively impact their business. It's not that complicated.

2. Within this educational effort, there should also be a straight forward explanation of how the PRO's actually work and how that provides songwriters/artists with a small amount of income (and I suggest giving REAL examples of this in actually dollars and cents), and should also explain how the PRO's work on behalf of writers and not themselves (since they are non profits).

3. They should make it clear that there is NOT any bounty/payoffs to local reps. I hear a lot of accusations from artists and venues that local PRO reps are akin to mafia shakedown figures.. who drive big caddy's and get blood money payoffs from local venues the same way the mafia shakes down businesses for protection money. They need to eliminate this impression. If there ARE payments made on lawsuits/collections on a commission basis, they need to stop that practice immediately and go on record that it does not happen anymore. (Perhaps a PRO rep can comment on this rampant rumor?).

4. The PRO's should take a business partner viewpoint and methodology with small venues. They should offer more education on how a venue can leverage live musicians to help build business at their venues. You could do this by offering real world examples of successes in communities around the US where small venues/businesses have built success around live music (or even recorded music if that's a scenario at hand). After all, a venue that is truly thriving from live music is a good partner for the PRO's and would result in even higher legit payments. Why not nurture and develop this community? Why not build a database of venue which DO pay PRO fees, and give further value to those venues with large collective promotional efforts of licensed venues? Use a two way business partnership model where artists are informed of the legit venues doing legit business.. run local ads touting all the licensed local venues in the paper (using group advertising purchasing power of those venues to cost pennies instead of dollars for local advertising). After all, we are ALL marketing LIVE MUSIC and we all benefit if it is thriving.. the Venues, the Artist, The Writers and the PRO's alike. Why not organize the power of 200,000 PRO members, Thousands and Thousands of Venues and the PRO's which are large and powerful to collectively build demand instead of suing each other?

5. The PRO's should also do a MUCH better job of educating their own members on the minimal costs associated with a legit licensee, and how those costs are determined. To me, realizing the venue above was only being billed 1.91 per day for complete and unlimited use of any song in the ASCAP catalog within their venue seems like a pretty darn good deal. Again, if you can't sell one more 2 dollar drink to cover it because of the live music, then perhaps you really SHOULDN'T be in that particular business. I think there should also be clear guidelines to explain to artists how to submit playlists of their own material to PRO's for compensation. If a venue is paying 2 bucks a day for live music, there should be a reasonable expectation that some of that money is coming directly back to the artists who are playing their material in those venues if they are affiliated with ASCAP. Those systems seem to be nonexistent.

6. I think all PRO's representing writers in the US should have to work together to have a single, all inclusive, licensing deal. This means that 1 venue pays 1 bills which is divided up by the PRO's rather than having all 3 separately coming at venues. People running venues are not music industry execs. Why should they have to become experts to understand what a PRO is, which ones are legit, why there are 3 etc? I think the hones should be 100% on the 3 PRO's to work together to present 1 single and consistent payment option for venues. If their claims have legal standing, they should also have a legal responsibility to collect consistent license fees in a clear and easy to understand format. Let them fight between themselves for who gets what percentage of that fee. That's NOT the concern of the venue. Venues that play cable TV stations (like sports bars) usually have 1 standard fee they pay for access to ALL the channels.. imagine if each venue had to separately deal with every cable station for payment? It would be impossible. PRO's should present a single package of license fees. There should be assurances that this single fee covers them completely. It should clearly indicate what rights/abilities they have and benefits they get to paying this fee. They should understand where this payment goes so that they can feel confident that the artists in their club are seeing their fair share of this income based on a REAL and DIRECT systems and not some secret, convoluted, black magic type of process which everyone is suspicious of, venues and writers alike.

I think if the PRO's did some or all of the things above, in a consistent, methodical manner, then it would be much easier to take their side in these issues. I think Venues using live music should pay. If they aren't willing to pay, they shouldn't use live music. I think Live artists should accept that if they want their piece of this payment, they should be professionals (i.e. if you want to be paid.. be professional.. what a concept) and affiliate with a legit PRO (or if you must, start one yourself.. ) and hold them accountable to get your fair portion of those licensing fees paid by every venue you perform your songs at.

If any of the above is happening, it's not happening consistently and it's CERTAINLY NOT being clearly explained to writers, venues or other interested parties in clear terms.

That's just my opinion.. I could be right.

Brian