[Fmpro] Announcement from the Film Music ProList Administrator

[Mark Northam]

Fair enough, Pete - you're certainly entitled to your opinion on things and
I respect that. Doug's done a lot of good things for composers, as I pointed
out, but he disrespected this list in its entirety with his statements, then
refused to defend or retract them, and that's what got him into trouble. As
to being our biggest ally, we must look to results to determine that. A lot
of bad things have happened at ASCAP on Doug' watch, starting with the
gutting of the Board of Review, the 1,331 signature rule, the secret TV
bonus scheme, and much more. I know Doug is working to address these, and
sincerely hope he can achieve the results I believe he wants in terms of
reforming these controversial actions.

Re: Sean, yes he said that, and I was sad to see that, but we should be
appreciative of the information he did provide. Perhaps one day a PRO rep
will actually be allowed to publicly answer the many, many legitimate
questions from the industry that their conduct generates regarding the
hundreds of millions of dollars they collect and distribute each year.

Questions, such as why US writers are only allowed to be a member of one PRO
at a time when foreign writers are allowed to place their catalog among all
US PROs at will, and publishers can be members of multiple US societies at
will. Or why writers are not allowed to have foreign collection
representatives like publishers are (subpublishers) to get paid more
quickly. Or perhaps most importantly, why score music within TV shows should
be penalized so heavily simply because it doesn't have lyrics.

Until then, we can only continue to research these situations and educate
each other as to our findings in forums like the FMPRO list. These are very
serious issues for our industry, and the amounts of money involved are
massive and affect every working composer in the US and abroad. For such a
critical industry to be cloaked in such secrecy is something we all should
be concerned about.

Best,

Mark Northam

> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmpro-bounces+markn=gmocorp.com at nxport.com [mailto:fmpro-
> bounces+markn=gmocorp.com at nxport.com] On Behalf Of Pete
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 2:14 PM
> To: fmpro at nxport.com
> Subject: Re: [Fmpro] Announcement from the Film Music ProList
Administrator
> 
> --- On Mon, 7/7/08, Mark Northam <markn at gmocorp.com> wrote:
> > Sean, who spent a great deal of time giving accurate and detailed
answers to all
> questions asked of him - something not a single ASCAP official has ever
done in an
> official capacity in this history of this list.
> 
> I truly appreciate Sean taking the time to answer questions. But, I guess
you missed
> when Sean said, "Les, I understand you have a lot of questions but I'm not
able to
> answer all of them (most) on this forum."  and "It wasn't my intention to
set myself
> up as a representative for PROs in general or even of SOCAN and defend our
> policies or procedures." Perfectly reasonable!
> 
> ASCAP Board Member Doug Wood also gave a LOT of his personal time to the
list.
> (Officially, unofficially, I don't care.) He even went as far as giving
out his studio
> phone number and email to help anyone offlist. He also invited list
members to a
> group conference call he set up to discuss matters. I feel disrespecting
him was
> short-sighted and unkind. I feel like this list has stabbed its biggest
ally in the back.
> 
> Pete Surdoval
>