[Fmpro] Belling the Cat - Commercials

[Mark Northam]

On 7/20/07 8:13 AM, "Pete" <musical411 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> But more importantly, if you say you want to "End the
> Discrimination against Instrumental Composers", you
> should know that paying commercials the same rate as
> background instrumentals will likely lower the royalty
> checks for instrumental composers.

This same argument was used by the SCL 10 years ago to try and scare the
hell out of instrumental composers to get them to go against any increases
for the CPA guys. Sorry, but simply put, you, I, and all ASCAP members don't
have enough numbers to know this to any degree of certainty, and ASCAP
certainly isn't sharing them, despite their phony promises of "transparency"
and "accountability".

To start with, you need to know how much CPA music is being tracked and paid
now, and by some reports, that's a very low number. And you need to know
what percentage of royalty distribution currently is score vs. songs, also
broken down by in-program, theme, and commercials. ASCAP chooses to keep all
that information secret, despite their promises of transparency and the
now-infamous "I'll get you the pie charts" promise by ASCAP's Al Wallace
over 10 years ago which he, of course, failed to do. Guess he didn't get the
memo about keeping all that information secret from the members.

And if you'll notice, I am specifically calling for equal pay for a minute
of song vs. a minute of score within the same show (not necessarily CPA -
commercial/promo/ad). However, IF they want to pay CPA music less
per-minute, then they should be required to demonstrate financially and
statistically why that music is worth less. I'll also add here that ALL
music should be paid by duration, not just background instrumental.

The problem now is that it's all a POLITICAL, arbitrary decision by the
board based on nothing more than who they "decide" they want to pay more.
Since votes are based on domestic income, those who the board decides to pay
more (like the songwriters) have the increased votes to keep "their guys" on
the board who keep the money flowing to benefit those who elect them, and
the discrimination continues for decade after decade.  Talk about a great
reason to implement term limits!

There's still hope for these folks, though. Maybe one day they'll take
seriously ASCAP's promises of accountability and transparency and stop
acting like it's a big game to hide so much information and their own
activities from the membership. For it's the ASCAP Board that has declared
the members the "enemy" and not deserving of important financial information
about OUR OWN royalty money, not me or anyone else, by choosing to act and
work in secret as if they're under siege from the membership, destroy the
concept of independent candidates, and treat members who ask important
questions with little more than contempt in some sort of an ignorant "you're
with us or you're against us" policy that, in ASCAP's world, attempts to
redefine "honest questions about how you're spending our royalty money" as
"threatening questions from troublemakers" and redefines "publishing
embarrassing facts" as "publishing misinformation" an a very amateurish
attempt at spin.

Accountability..... Transparency.... Democracy....  They are much more than
words. They are, as Marilyn Bergman said herself, "the principles which have
guided ASCAP for over 90 years." And when they are forgotten or ignored by
people who do so out of fear in order to protect and maintain their own
personal interests, we as members have a duty to demand that our elected
leaders and representatives uphold these values not only in words, but by
their actions. And if through their action (or inaction) they continue to
trample and abuse these concepts, they no longer deserve our votes, or more
importantly, our respect.


Best,

Mark Northam