[Fmpro] 80% Non-Lyric Penalty?

[Pete]

--- bipcress at comcast.net wrote:
> Precisely what is the 
> logic behind paying out more residual bucks to a
> composer for music with 
> words, and less for instrumental compositions? 

I'm SO glad you asked that John! Cause, it isn't true.
That's exactly why I've been debating this for a week.
That's the perception Mark Northam creates when he
makes statements like "Your music gets whacked with an
80% penalty if it doesn't have lyrics." NOT TRUE!

The truth is, our music gets paid the same, regardless
of if it's an instrumental or vocal, when it's on the
radio, used in advertising, used as a show's
themesong, played in a restaurant, dentist office, bar
etc. Those aren't just a few rare exceptions, that's a
large amount of the music paid through ASCAP/BMI.

Then you have "Feature" use and "Background" use.
Feature use is when the music becomes a main focus of
the audience's attention. That happens when you see
onscreen an orchestra performing live, a man playing
harmonica in jail, a rock band jamming, an aerobics
class dancing to a boombox, or when you hear lyrics.
The lyrics become like a part of the scenes dialog and
the logic is that it now becomes a primary focus of
the audience's attention. It's no longer in the
"background" supporting the scene.

Finally, you have "Background" use, which is when the
music is supporting the visuals on screen, but no
longer a primary focus of the audiences attention.
It's been debated that vocal music is never classified
and paid as "Background" although there have been two
cases discussed here where Vocal Music has been paid
as "background" as well.

You can call ASCAP and ask them yourself if what I'm
saying is true. We can debate that the system could be
done a million different ways. But, that's how it is.

Hope that helped clear it up,
Pete




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