Bob. Using your way of looking at it, let me say, to my knowledge, the man we both admire, and often give as an example, Irving Berlin, was never a "Gotta stop being lazy, invest in a live act and go sing" man.
He flogged his butt off up and down tin pan alley geting them that could to believe in his stuffr enough to do it.
He did in fact do a few stints in musicals.
I saw him in Rusty Bugles and the man was not a performer.
That was re-enforced when I watches some old footage of him in studios etc.
Great writer but total loss as a crowd appeal thing.
And he was no orphan. A great number of the great writers were never in fact performers in that era.
So much for history.
We non performoing writers are doing the same now using the modern way of doing it with varying success.
That now anybody in the world can go get a song from the net. Download it. Learn it, and then earn on it without so much as a penny evre getting to the writer is one of the setbacks of the deal, but if ya wanna get out there, ya gotta get out there as best you can.
I enjoy getting the odd e-mail from an artist saying they are doing one of mine, or ours when it is a collab, live and it is going well.
I'd enjoy it better if the system worked worldwide well that, at no expense to the performer, I got my dues for that public hearing.
Note Bob. You keep saying "Why should I pay" and I keep saying "The performer does not pay in the system here at least". "Royalty to writer payments by the PRO come from the umbrella fund generated by the Venue subs"
Note also. The venues still have to pay their dues, no matter if they use live or canned music.
It just varies in amount depending on what they state their annual entertainment breakdown as.
And as I understand, they tell fibs on that one, just as writers overstate their own song play figures when playing live.
Graham



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