[Fmpro] 1:1 finer points

[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 Merritt Music
> Productions
> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 2:39 PM
> To: fmpro at nxport.com
> Subject: Re: [Fmpro] 1:1 finer points
> 
> 
> Can you see how this could favor songwriters?  If they get a song placed
in
> a film you are scoring and their song is 3 minutes and you compose a 3
> minute piece for the movie.  THE SONG WILL MAKE SOMETHING LIKE FIVE
> TIMES
> MORE MONEY THAN YOU,  Doesn't matter if it's any old song they picked off
> MySpace or wherever.
> 
> That's just the current ASCAP policy:  "Background Vocal" receives an
> instant bump to feature performance.
> 
> It's a silly policy!
>

Actually, 3 minutes of score is paid 60% of what a three minute song (played
continuously) is paid by the current ASCAP rules. However, if you change
that to three one-minute excerpts of the same song or 3 one-minute songs,
the 3-minutes of score in that scenario, since songs are also awarded "per
play" not by duration only like score is, would be paid only 20% of what the
three minutes of songs are paid. More special rules for the songwriters that
don't apply to composers - important also, because the typical music usage
in a film is 1 minute, not three, with the possible exception of the end
credits.

While the policy is silly (and incredibly costly for composers), it is
anything but silly for the songwriters who are making out like bandits
because of it. Don't think for a minute they (and their minions) won't do
anything and everything it takes to preserve their financial bonanza. This
is serious money we're talking about, and from what I've seen, the greed of
those who benefit from this policy is far more powerful than any sense of
fairness or right and wrong. For these people, what's right is what makes
them the most money, and what's wrong is taking any money away from them for
any reason. While it's nothing more than the raw capitalism that runs US
businesses, it's a very, very powerful motivating force that has kept these
money grabs in place for decades, keeps much of the accompanying financial
details secret, manipulates the election policy to keep reformers off the
ballots, and has resulted in ruthless character attacks against anyone who
dares say things should be different. 

An ASCAP board member once issued me a public challenge on this list: show
me an example of where a song and score are paid differently but the usage
is the same and I'll do something about it. My response, "watch the end
credits of any film." The usage is exactly the same... music to watch names
roll by. But during the end credits, just like during the film, every song
is paid as a feature due to ASCAP's policies, while the instrumental score
is targeted with a huge penalty and paid at background rates. Not
surprisingly, he never got back to me on that one.

Fighting people that support this kind of thing is not an easy battle, but
it's one that composers must fight if we are to preserve the viability of
score composing as a career and successfully defend ourselves and our
livelihoods against those people and institutions who choose to value
instrumental music as second-rate. In the end, they work in secret because
they cannot begin to openly justify their policies with any independent
facts or figures, and only offer the same excuse used to defend any number
of ugly, indefensible policies in our history, "it's because we've always
done it this way"... perhaps in today's vocabulary it's stated another
way... "for historical reasons."

Best,

Mark Northam