[Fmpro] Democracy & The election issue

[Mark Northam]

Actually there was a way you could pick and choose which amendments you
voted for and against, but with ASCAP billing all of the amendments as
"Advantages for ASCAP Members" most people bought it hook, line and sinker.

The Amendments themselves were largely benign, however ASCAP chose to bury
some of their dirty tricks deep in the Amendment language, including making
the language so vague as to be almost undecipherable without additional
references that the ASCAP Board, conveniently, chose not to include...

Take for instance, the language that the ASCAP Board crafted and recommended
to the Membership as an "advantage"  that basically guaranteed their own
jobs would be safe from "independent" candidates:

"In any election for the Board of Directors, the candidates for Directors
shall include, in addition to those candidates chosen by the Nominating
Committees, any person eligible to be a Director who is designated by a
petition subscribed to by members of the Society entitled to elect such
Director who comprise at least five-eights of one percent of the total
writer or publisher members of the Society"

Notice: no numbers given (such as the total number of writer members or
voting writer members), no examples of how this tricky formula based on
undisclosed numbers would actually affect members. This conscious choice to
not give any examples, reference undisclosed facts and statistics, and couch
the language in unclear terms represents a deliberate attempt by those who
crafted this language to dupe the membership into passing something that I
doubt many would have passed had the amendment been more properly and
accurately worded:

"Does the membership agree to increase the number of signatures required for
independent candidates for the ASCAP Board of Directors election from 25,
where it has remained for decades, to over 1,000?"

But back to the ASCAP Board's language for a moment. Note the language:

1.  - "...subscribed to by members of the Society entitled to elect such
Director" 
This means Voting Writer Members - whereas ASCAP probably has over 100,000
writer members (the number of total writer members isn't available on
ASCAP's website), only a small percentage actually receive royalties and can
vote in the elections. Worse yet, ASCAP refuses to disclose the number of
voting writer members, so a candidate has no idea how big the pool of
potential signers even is for a petition.  Being a good loyal ASCAP man, I
doubt Doug Wood will disclose that either as I asked earlier today, even
though I'll bet he can't point out a single ASCAP regulation that specifies
that the number of voting writer members must remain an ASCAP secret.

2. "who comprise at least five-eights of one percent of the total writer or
publisher members of the Society"
And there's the trick bag, folks. The NUMBER of signatures required is based
on the TOTAL number of voting and non-voting writer members, but the ONLY
PEOPLE who can actually sign the petition are VOTING writer members.

The number of signatures now is best estimated by ASCAP at 1,020 according
to ASCAP's Phil Crosland this week.

Perhaps the most telling response of all was when I asked a high ranking
ASCAP LA office person how this rule could possibly benefit the membership.
His answer was one word: "Stability."

Sadly, that's the same kind of "stability" that's kept ASCAP years behind
when it comes to digital watermarking usage and implementation, and now
appears to be the universal excuse at ASCAP to maintain the status quo of
discrimination directed against score music no matter what the cost.

It's clear to me that these people will say and do anything to keep their
jobs and their privileges intact. But then again, I'm sure some on the ASCAP
Board, between their first class air travel and 5-star hotel accommodations
paid for by the membership, must have had a pretty good laugh when this
particular amendment passed, virtually guaranteeing they'd never be
"bothered" by those pesky independent candidates...

Best,

Mark Northam


On 8/18/06 10:53 AM, "Les Hurdle" <leshurdle101 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> 
> On Aug 18, 2006, at 9:38 AM, Mark Northam wrote:
> 
>>  conveniently for
>> you and the ASCAP Board, we only heard about it when the text was
>> being sent
>> to the membership
> 
> Was this not part of the 9 change ballot paper sent around?
> 
> Members were not allowed to vote as per change but only for or against
> all 9.......... more con !
> 
> I vote for the Mafia next time.
> 
> BTW... ASCAP mem services are still not answering any of my
> questions... even the easy one's !
> 
> Am I on SS's nasty boy list?
> 
> Les
> 
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Mark Northam - Publisher
Film Music Magazine
The Professional Voice of Music for Film & TV
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