[Fmpro] Les Hurdle

Thu May 1 18:20:58 GMT 2008

Take a look at this:

ASCAP COMPOSER BILL OF RIGHTS
=====================================

1. The right to be paid for all performances of your music on radio and TV using the latest technology  (to me this implies that if we/you weren’t using the latest technology we/you have no right to be paid for all performances  . . .) –This needs to be clarified.  Do you mean latest payment tracking technologies?  If so, I would add something like that.

Alternate: The right to be paid commensurate wages for all performances of your music on radio and TV using the latest technologies for tracking and computing composition royalties.  

2. The right to a response within 10 business days from ASCAP member services reps for all questions regarding ASCAP royalties

3. The right to address the Board of Directors in person for a limited time at each Board meeting (need to set the time limitations here both maximum and minimum, or else they will, and perhaps hand cuff us into too little time to effectively discuss a grievance).

4. The right to know how ASCAP is spending our money - full disclosure by ASCAP for multi-million dollar decisions involving member dollars, such as IMJV, MediaGuide, etc and any other matters other than salaries.

5. The right to see the at-source amount that a foreign PRO paid ASCAP before ASCAP takes it's "deductions" 

(the right to transparent accountability and the right to member oversight) 

6. The right for independent candidates to take part in the ASCAP election process by petition with a reasonable signature requirement, enacted in time to collect signatures for the next elections in January, 2009.

What is reasonable?  Must set the standard – avoid ambiguity.

7. The right to know when and if our board members show up for board meetings (ie, the attendance records)

8. The right to know the voting records of our board members on issues of importance to us.  Ambiguous and subjective – who is to decide what an “issue of importance” is?  I wouldn’t set this limitation.

Rewritten: The right to view all voting records.  (perhaps someone more clever than I can elaborate on this but this one is pretty simple.

10. The right for background instrumental music to have an equal opportunity for feature performance pay as a background vocal has based on a fair and impartial decision as to the importance of the music to the particular scene

I don’t understand this one – what are you getting at?  Do you want equal pay  - equal to vocal tunes?

11. The right to negotiate a larger than 50% split for writers (like they currently have in several other countries)

12. The right, like publishers have, to belong to more than one US society so we can split our catalog among the society that pays it the best. This right is also enjoyed by every non-US writer, but is denied to US writers.

On both item 11 and 12 I would find the exact verbiage that defines these two rights and use it verbatim.

Hebity-hebity-hebity, that’s all folks! 

~Robert

Robert Scott Stanton
San Francisco Bay Area, CA
zolessi at comcast.net
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=822049

-----Original Message-----
From: fmpro-bounces+zolessi=comcast.net at nxport.com [mailto:fmpro-bounces+zolessi=comcast.net at nxport.com] On Behalf Of chris at alpiar.com
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 9:09 AM
To: fmpro at nxport.com
Subject: Re: [Fmpro] Les Hurdle

Yea well thats the problem in a nutshell. I posted Mark Northams suggested bill of rights for ascap composers and asked the list for suggestions. just for SUGGESTIONS, not even to committ to it in any way shape or form yet... and 2 people have bothered to taken time to talk about any of those 12 points. I am feeling pretty disgusted at this moment. I understand why Les left is because of that apathy found among our group and I am starting to see it very clearly. So sad so sad. When there are no more royalty payments made and every music is done for sync only on a pro level colliding with everyone willing to work for free on the noob level I am going to be really sad. The trends are already set in place, time to wake up and grow some backbone folks. The bill of rights is one good, democratic, fair and non-violent way to at least begin to define what we want and what we should be getting.

http://composersforum.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=773368%3ATopic%3A37019

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar
Cinematic Composer
http://www.alpiar.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: andrew feazelle [mailto:andrew.feazelle at gte.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2008 08:19 AM
To: fmpro at nxport.com
Subject: [Fmpro] Les Hurdle

FYI Les Hurdle has left the FMPRO list, so any responses to his posts should be emailed directly to his email as shown in the posts, rather than to the list. Best, Mark Northam ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What what what? I'm in the middle of trying to make a deadline so gotsta post and run (as usual), but would like to say a quick word about LH - FMN hosted a thing a while back where production library reps did a panel discussion on aspects of the library business - Les was the only cat in the room with enough guts to voice his dissatisfaction that these american companies weren't sharing mechanicals with composers. If we all grumbled as much as Les, we'd probably be in a lot better shape than we are............ A Fez _______________________________________________ The Film Music Pro List is sponsored by Film Music Magazine - http://www.filmmusicmag.com Best of FMPRO: http://www.fmproq!
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