[Fmpro] Euro Downloads Pay Song/Score equally, why not ASCAP?

[Mark Northam]

That's the bottom line, isn't it....

Broadcasters pay no more for song than score.

So what justifies the PROs paying a MUCH higher rate for song than score
(for a one minute cue, the typical length used on Film/TV)?

At ASCAP, the math is simple. Boil it down to a microcosm of the real world.
Suppose a broadcaster pays $123.60 and airs three minutes of music - one
minute of song, another minute of score (all within TV programs) and one
minute of music in a commercial (not a pop song, etc). The broadcaster is
paying $40 per minute for the music. We'll assume that there are no
deductions by ASCAP for the sake of simplicity.

The songwriter will get $100 for his/her minute of music (probably generic,
since most songs aren't custom-written for a program)

The composer will get $20 for his/her minute of music, likely custom-written
for the program. Oh, and the composer will probably have had to give up his
publishing, unlike the songwriter, whose works are licensed in to the show.

The commercial composer will get $3.60 if his/her performance gets tracked
at all, due to the notoriously poor tracking by the PROs of music in
commercials.

Yet each wrote one minute of music, watched by the same number of people.

If you expand it to 200 minutes of music, split equally between song and
score and commercials, assuming all 1 minute cues, the math works out the
same way.

I defy anyone, especially our friends Shawn LeMone and Doug Wood on this
list, to demonstrate why that is fair and just.  And if you think my math is
wrong (it isn't), then show me the "right" math.

Why does this exist?

Politics, songwriter greed, and composer apathy, that's exactly why it
exists. And our composers on the ASCAP Board ought to be screaming about
this, not telling us to settle down. Their silence on these issues makes
them as guilty as those who crafted these prejudicial policies, because it's
under their "watch" that these policies continue to cost composers millions
of dollars every year as that money is quietly funneled into the pockets of
the pop songwriters.

Another reason it exists are composers organizations who accept large
amounts of money from all 3 PROs and then are afraid to confront this issue
for fear of endangering their funding or upsetting the PROs. In essence,
these organizations have sold their membership out in return for whatever
funding (and perhaps political favors for their leaders?) they receive.
These organizations should be lobbying the PROs HARD on behalf of their
composer members who suffer with these discriminatory policies. Instead,
it's buddy-buddy time, and with a wink and a nod at the "right" cocktail
parties, the policies continue unchallenged.

It's a shameful situation. The US is home of some of the world's greatest
film and TV composers, yet those composers suffer in silence as the PROs
punish them day after day with some of the world's most discriminatory
royalty rules. Will the next generation of composers have the integrity and
pride in themselves and their own artistic product and courage to stand up
to this blatant discrimination? We can only hope.


Mark Northam



On 7/17/07 9:34 AM, "leshurdle" <leshurdle at avradionet.com> wrote:

> 1-1  what is so wrong with that?