[Fmpro] My error DW.....ASCAP

[Mark Northam]

On 7/19/07 9:20 PM, "leshurdle" <leshurdle at avradionet.com> wrote:

> I think it would be prudent to know what the 'numbers' were which
> surrounded the most recent ASCAP Board election.
> For now let's just deal with the writers side.


Let us all not forget ASCAP's promises to us:

" ASCAP¹s books are open to all. ASCAP is the only U.S. performing rights
organization to provide full financial disclosure to our members and the
public."
http://www.ascap.com/about/ascapadvantage.html

I guess they've decided that "full financial disclose" conveniently doesn't
include many aspects of our royalty money, including:

* The amounts in the various holding funds, etc that are maintained to be
used for secret advances, etc..
* Any meaningful financial breakdown of royalty payouts by type of
performances or genre of music.
* Any detail about the amounts that broadcasters pay as license fees
* Any detail about what ASCAP staff and management are paid
* Any detail about secret advances provided to "selected" members
* How much member money was donated to various societies and organizations,
or the guidelines for those donations or the amounts donated to songwriter
oriented groups compared to composer oriented groups
* How much member money was spent promoting songs vs. score music at various
events, etc.  


And this whopper, directly from Marilyn Bergman:

"Democracy, transparency, accountability. These principles which have guided
ASCAP for more than 90 years are never more apparent than with our upcoming
bi-annual election of our Board of Directors"
>From PLAYBACK, Winter 2005:
http://www.ascap.com/playback/2005/winter/presidentletter.html

I guess destroying any chance of independent candidates getting on the
ballot is the ASCAP Board's idea of "democracy", keeping the vote counts,
and even the number of members eligible to vote is its idea of
"transparency", and a board that meets in secret and won't allow members to
even see the agenda or attendance record of its meetings is the pinnacle of
"accountability." Jeesh!

Les, Doug's handlers at ASCAP simply won't let him release the numbers you
want, and it's hard to blame him - I  do believe he's trying, but there are
much more powerful people there who want to keep a lid on any and all
information about the election vote counts, number of voting members, etc.

We can only wonder why public scrutiny is something they're so afraid of.

Best,

Mark Northam