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

Bob,

After all this it seems like perhaps our 2 viewpoints don't really conflict as much as it seems.

First, we agree that the system of payment from the PRO to the writers leaves a lot to be desired. The problem with it is that it isn't cost effective to micro manage it. Everyone could track and turn in performance listings for each gig, but with 3 US PRO's who could possibly know which version and writer should get paid for "I Love You" or "The Sky Is Blue and So Am I" because there are literally thousands of versions of these two song titles alone. Now multiply that by every song performed. Also keep in mind most artists who perform are themselves affiliated with a PRO, but may or may not have registered a particular song title for their PRO to even be aware it should be collected on. These circumstances are NOT the fault of the PRO, or the Venue or the Artist or the Writer. It's just reality. Rather than have an equally flawed but much more drastically expensive model where every song is tracked and humans try to manually sort out the minutia of which song was played, everyone agreed to use the same (slightly less flawed) method of radio/media airplay and large concert tracking where there were ways to accurately sample and then apply that mathematically to the entire country, saving EVERYONE (Media and Venues) a huge amount of money which they'd have to pay to make the other system work. Fees would likely have to be dramatically more and the hassle would be tremendous for the venues. Plus, fraud would be rampant. That is why the PRO's use a random and secretive sampling. If they didn't, I assure you that the big boys of the industry would manipulate the system much more than they do today.

As bad as this system is for an artist who only occasionally shows up on the radio, it does work to get money to some of them. For example, if you've ever received ANY PRO payment, then you've gotten some money for the assumed Live plays at the same time. From what I understand (and correct me if I am wrong) they don't break out the Live performances in their own pay category (at least on ASCAP reports which we took a look at last week). That money collected from venues is in the total pool and when the survey finds that a Bob Young song was played on WGN during the survey, a check is written and the amount is determined by all monies available, meaning that if you get a check, you did in fact get paid for live performances. Of course the money will be tiny if you are only getting a few plays and only showing up occasionally in a survey. The songs that show up millions of times will get (and frankly deserve to get) the money for those plays as well. But the formula can also work to a writers benefit (and has many times). I've had little guys get checks from seemingly no where because their song showed up on a survey in Alaska where some person just happened to play it 1 time on the day they randomly surveyed. He was then paid on the assumption that it was playing on other stations too, even though it likely wasn't. But in other periods, he had gotten regional airplay in Indianapolis on many stations, but it didn't get picked up on the survey. It evened out, over the course of time, to what was probably pretty fair and also probably the best and most fair system anyone on any side of the argument could come up with.

In the case of ASCAP, there's even a discretionary fund (which also uses some of the pool of money collected from venues) to pay writers who don't show up, but who can document significant local or regional airplay and live performance play. That pool of money does go to smaller writers in appropriately smaller amounts.

Let's also consider that there SHOULD be a financial benefit to success. If you are the little guy at a company, you're probably making a tiny fraction of the person who started the company, owns it and runs it. But people work their way up to the point where they can also run the company one day and should get the money for that success.

All of this is the reality we are dealing with today. In the often quoted scenario we've been using here (since there were tangible numbers of 1.91 per day), remember that equates to less than 5 cents for each song played that night. If the cost of tracking and monitoring that performance to get that nickel to the appropriate writer costs 50 cents, not many people will get paid. The blanket fee is small enough for the venue to afford, but large enough so that some of that money can get to a writer and publisher. (And remember, if there are multiple writers on a song, plus publisher interests, we're often talking less than a penny per play for each party. But those microfractional pennies add up over ALL the venues (and radio plays) throughout the year and the pool is large enough so that some folks who have had hit songs can still get a little money each pay cycle from the PRO's. (And I know a LOT of writers who only get a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per quarter for songs that were big hits.. it's not all about rich people.)

Remember also the real world example given by Danny and Sara for Sara's song "Home to You" which was all the way to #1 (for 1 day, finishing #2 for the week) on the country charts. The actual money that song produced for her was less than if she had worked minimum wage for the time period it took her to write it, get a cut, and collect. She's hardly rich (I stay at their house in Nashville). They make their living mostly from teaching. But those fees collected from the pools compensate her for radio play and all the cover bands and karaoke singers doing that song. The money DOES get to real people and not just Madonna.

So, unless you disagree with these points, we both agree the system is weak, but I make the case that it's the best system anyone has yet come up with to distribute the money. It's the system that each writer agrees to use when they sign up for a PRO. The PRO's (ASCAP in particular) can be swayed and changed by their members, but so far there hasn't been any uprising from the members to say there's a better system that should be in place.

Now please separate that from the system used to collect the money.

First, ask yourself what is the actual financial value of the song that is performed to the venue and artist? If you argue zero, then we can stop the argument here. It's a point we'll simply never agree on and further discussion won't change it.

But if a song has a value to a radio station (and you seem okay with Radio paying license fees) then it seems logical there is some type of financial value to venues and artists for it's use as well. Keep in mind when setting this value that there is a large cost of goods.. i.e. the songwriter has to spend money on their craft to write songs and get them out to people to hear and want to cover at a live venue. Sure, there are exceptions to that rule. Sometimes a writer plays a song for 1 person and they start playing it at shows. But that is more often not the case and it doesn't change the math anyway.

If you play someone's song 200 times in live venues over the course of a year, using the 1.91 fee as the basis, you'd owe that writer a whopping $10.00 for the entire year of usage, minus the cost of tracking and paying the money which would likely eat a chunk of it up. So, if that writer didn't have a publisher they'd be looking at 6-7 bucks probably in earnings if every venue you played paid license fees. That's for 200 dates per year. So ask yourself, is that an unreasonable amount for a songwriter to want for someone to use their song 200 times a year to get paid music gigs? You may argue that some number of people would seek out that song and buy it. That's good because a writer can't pay for the note pads they used to write the songs over the course of a year for 6-7 bucks. In that same time period, lets say you played for 25 bucks and half the door all year (your example) and lets say the door half was only 25 bucks (10 people at 5 bucks a head.. minuscule numbers here). So, over the same time period, even with these tiny numbers (a sort of worst case scenario for the live artist) they are taking in $10,000 dollars over that same time period (again, we are talking worst case scenario.. most full time artists doing 200 shows a year are making several hundred dollars per show at least with some gigs paying more and some less). Even if you played 40 songs by 1 writer, the compensation they would get from writing and creating every song you played all year would be a whopping $250.00, give or take a few bucks. That sounds like a pretty fair deal. If you're doing 40 Rolling stones tunes each night to make a living, I think you getting $10,000 and them getting $250.00 is a pretty fair exchange. Also keep in mind you (as the artist, and again ONLY making $25.00 per show plus $25.00 from the door 200 nights a year) can also sell CD's and shirts and get tips, etc., and that would further add to your earnings. If you played 100 gigs a year or 10 gigs a year, the proportions of income earned stays the same.

So, how much of that money would you take away from the writer? To me, if I could go out and play Bruce Hornsby songs (one of my favorites) and make 10K from the gigs, I think giving him $250 bucks is pretty reasonable. If I sell 1000 CD's at 10 bucks a piece with 10 of his songs on it, I will essentially be paying him $800.00 for the rights to use and sell them. So ironically, playing the songs live is actually a better financial deal to me by a factor of more than 3 to 1.

So, for me, as a songwriter, to get paid the same amount of money ($20,000 dollars) which the artist has made from playing 40 of my songs 200 nights a year (at the lowest pay rate) and selling 1000 CD's using 10 of my songs (at the budget rate of $10.00 per CD) I'd have to have roughly 20 artists doing this year round to make the same money. If my work is supporting 20 artists to do their music full time, I think it's fair that I should get a full time wage as well. (and we all know 20K isn't a great living wage.. but it's far more than I get to run JPF).

When you look at the money, you quickly realize that the songwriter is the lowest earner on the totem pole. I don't think anyone is evil in this equation. Many live venues want to use popular and familiar (i.e. cover) live music to bring in a clientele so they can sell beer or coffee or whatever they are selling. Many artists want to cover the best of all the songs out there to enhance their performance quality and make them more popular as performers and help them get more gigs for more money as they develop. Many writers would simply like to share in the earnings that their work helps make possible. Perhaps if a writer gets a few thousand dollars a year in PRO payments, they'll be able to hire a babysitter to watch the kids while they write songs.. or they'll be able to buy a new guitar or piano to write those future songs that others want to cover. Perhaps they'll simply be able to pay their rent one month or see that someone out there in the universe puts a value on their contribution to society. And perhaps a writer can survive long enough at low wages to develop their career to become famous and successful enough to make a full time living or even a comfortable living from their work. That's something that everyone who works hard, has talent and persistence and work ethic deserves to have a shot to achieve. Something tells me you're all for that as well. But even if you aren't, I don't think it's my right or your right to tell someone else that their work can be exploited by others with no say and no compensation. File "sharing/stealing" thieves feel that is the case. Some people simply think they are entitled to others work even though they'd never give their work (or what they worked to create/achieve/earn) away. I sure hope there aren't many artists and writers among them.

Brian