[Fmpro] isn't the PRO thing basically this?

[Mark Northam]

That's a big part of it, Todd.

Some contributing factors:

1. The PROs have been notoriously reluctant to adopt technology that would
identify large amounts of currently unidentified performances, probably
because paying all those newly identified performances would dilute the
checks of the current high-earning members.

2. The current licensing fee paid by networks/broadcasters/etc is a license
to perform ALL the music they broadcast. Problem is, only a portion of that
music is tracked and the writers/publishers paid. The problem is the
untracked portion of music that's broadcast, licensed, a fee paid for as
part of the blanket license fee paid to the PROs, but the PROs choose not to
pay the writers/publishers with excuses like "it didn't make the survey"
etc. If you think about it, the "survey" is  simply a way to keep the fat
cats' checks high without diluting them by paying everybody whose music was
actually licensed and broadcast. The fact that the technology exists to
track far more music than is currently tracked an paid is undisputed. It's
the political will of the PROs to actually DO THEIR JOB and go out and track
as much music as is technologically/economically feasible that's the issue.

3. So they can sleep at night, I suppose, the PROs have assigned
artificially small values to music for commercials, ads and promos. This
helps them justify their position of not spending much time/effort/money to
track this music. In fact, it's the least-tracked music on television, but
represents over 50% of the minutes of music on television by one survey.

4. This is about politics, nothing else. Those getting fat checks now want
to keep their fat checks coming in, and they could care less about those
members who are getting NOTHING for their untracked performances. Greed has
run amok at the PROs, and has resulted in massive amounts of untracked,
unpaid performances whose writers and publishers have been denied their
share of the blanket license fees paid by the broadcasters due to the
political choices made by the PROs to only pay "some" of the music on the
air, while actually licensing and being paid for ALL of the music on the air
by the broadcasters.

Best,

Mark Northam

On 1/19/07 10:14 AM, "Todd Burns" <tzilla at pacbell.net> wrote:

> If everyone got paid for every bit of music that aired, wouldn't the
> amount be so staggeringly different from current numbers that every
> writer's  piece of the pie would shrink considerably (or some other
> massive shake-up to the status quo) that nobody in charge wants to go
> there?  Is that it?  The current licensing fees from the networks
> probably could not support it.  Thoughts?  If I've repeated someone
> else's thought, forgive me.
> 
> Todd

---------------------------------
Mark Northam - Publisher
Film Music Magazine
The Professional Voice of Music for Film & TV
http://www.filmmusicmag.com
1-800-774-3700 x702 / (310) 645-9000 x702