[Fmpro] Belling the Cat

[Mark Northam]

Hi Jim -

Great idea. Time to sort out some major issues. Some ideas for consideration
re: ASCAP's policies towards instrumental composers:

1. End the Discrimination against Instrumental Composers
End the discrimination against instrumental music by the ASCAP Board and pay
a minute of song the same rate as a minute of instrumental music used on the
same program, watched by the same number of people. If commercials or any
music is to be paid less than the full rate, the Board must demonstrate with
complete financial and statistical evidence why, and it should be put to a
vote of the membership.

2. End the Lockout of Independent Board Candidates
End the virtual lockout of independent candidates by the ASCAP Board and
allow independent candidates on the ballot if they get a reasonably
attainable number of signatures, such as 50 (after all, only 25 were
required from 1961 through 2001 - why should it be over 1,000 now?)

3. End the Vote Count Secrecy
End the ASCAP board's blatantly undemocratic policy of hiding board
candidate vote counts, the total vote count, and the number of eligible
voters in ASCAP's membership.

4. End the Board Meeting Secrecy Policies
End the virtual lockout of the membership from its elected board's
activities and hold Board members accountable individually to the membership
by publishing the agenda, attendance records, board motions and voting
records, and other details of ASCAP Board meetings other than personnel
matters, legal strategy matters, and those matters directly involving
competitive ASCAP/BMI/SESAC discussions.

5. Act Against Cue Sheet Fraud by Requiring a Signature on Cue Sheets and
Posting Cue Sheets Online as part of ACE
For decades, ASCAP has accepted cue sheets without any signature, enabling
listing of obvious non-writers, executives, on cue sheets without anyone
taking legal responsibility for the accuracy of the information on the cue
sheets. Given the fact that cue sheets are the enabling documents for the
payments of hundreds of millions of dollars each year in royalties, they
should require a legal signature from someone who takes responsibility for
the accuracy of the information contained on them. In addition, make cue
sheets available as part of the ACE online title system to introduce another
level of integrity into the system and make cue sheet fraud easier to detect
and report.

There are, of course, many more issues, but these are some that would be at
the top of my list.

Best,

Mark Northam


On 7/19/07 10:06 PM, "Jim Chase" <jchase at billyhalemusic.com> wrote:

>    Mark?  Anyone?  If you are good with organization of issues, throw
> something out here on the list that we can all agree on -- terse and
> to-the-point -- then, let's send it out.