General Music Chat

A Message from ASCAP President Paul Williams to Members About the DOJ’s 100% Licensing Proposal

Fellow ASCAP members:

As a songwriter, words are my bread and butter. But I’ve spent the past week struggling to find the right words to express how disappointed I am by ASCAP’s recent meeting with the US Department of Justice regarding our consent decree.

I know many of you share my frustration with this process. Songwriters have been disadvantaged in the marketplace by a regulatory structure that was conceived in a very different era. We went to the DOJ seeking their help to update the consent decrees. Instead of making the necessary modifications, we have been saddled with a disruptive proposal that ignores songwriters’ concerns for our future livelihoods in a streaming world, serves absolutely no public interest and creates confusion and instability for all of us who depend on the efficiencies of collective licensing.

This, even after thousands of you provided comments to the DOJ on your perspectives as professional music creators. It is as if the DOJ saw songwriters struggling to stay afloat in a sea of outdated regulations and decided to hand us an anchor, in the form of 100% licensing, instead of a life preserver.

I am so grateful to those of you who generously and fearlessly gave of your time and participated in this process. I know you must feel like your voices were not heard. But I am telling you, it has made a difference.

This process and this fight are far from over. Rest assured, because so many of you were willing to take a stand on these issues, we have gained important allies in Washington who are committed to standing with songwriters.

ASCAP and BMI are continuing our discussions with the DOJ about our consent decrees. ASCAP is also working closely with BMI and the entire songwriting and publishing community as we evaluate all of our options and carefully consider the best path forward. We have a team of legal experts, effective advocates in DC, an incredibly strong management team under the direction of our CEO Beth Matthews, and, of course, the guidance of your dedicated elected writers and publishers on the ASCAP Board.

As we continue to work to modernize music licensing, we must remember what has sustained ASCAP and set us apart for more than 100 years. We are a non-for-profit collective of music creators - an organization owned and run by our members. Everything we do is in the best interests of our songwriter, composer and music publisher members. That has always been our strength and that will be our strength going forward.

Sticking together as music creators, ASCAP has managed seemingly insurmountable challenges in the past. And we’ve withstood them all, preserving our rights and our livelihoods while moving the industry forward in the process.

There is no doubt in my mind that when we look back on this chapter in our history, we will be able to say that we did it once again.

In the meantime, we are working closely with our allies in DC. I give you my word that we will keep you informed as the process moves forward. I know many of you are eager to know what you can do, and we will have more to share on that front very soon. We know we can count on you to stand with ASCAP and stand with songwriters.

Yours in solidarity,

Paul

A UPDATE FROM MIKE O’NEILL TO BMI’S SONGWRITERS, COMPOSERS & PUBLISHERS

Dear BMI Member,

It’s been just over a week since the DOJ shared its interpretation of BMI and ASCAP’s consent decrees, and I wanted to take a moment to update you on what’s been happening.

As you know, during our meeting on June 29, we learned that the DOJ would not take the opportunity to modernize BMI’s outdated consent decree. Instead, it determined that BMI and ASCAP must follow a 100% licensing model, a practice that has never been the industry standard and one that BMI and ASCAP never raised for discussion.

Since then, the DOJ began a series of meetings with key industry participants to share this news with them directly. Understandably, there is a lot of confusion about what this means and a lot of conversations taking place within the industry about what will happen.

First and foremost, let me stress that the DOJ’s position is simply that – its position. It’s not a ruling or a decision. It is how the DOJ interprets BMI’s consent decree. And as you know, BMI disagrees strongly with that interpretation.

While we hope to reach a mutually agreeable resolution with the DOJ, we have a number of scenarios in front of us that we are evaluating carefully. We believe the DOJ’s interpretation benefits no one – not BMI or ASCAP, not the music publishers, and not the music users – but we are most sensitive to the impact this could have on you, our songwriters and composers. The decisions we make will always consider what is in your best interest.

To that end, we are working closely with ASCAP as we evaluate our options. Both BMI and ASCAP believe this situation transcends the normal healthy competition between our organizations. We are united in our determination to protect the rights of our songwriters and composers, as well as your creative freedom and financial interests.

We have heard from many of you with questions about what this all means. A Q&A can be found here to help answer some of the questions that have come up.

As we have in the past, BMI may call on you to help us in this fight. We hope you will be available.

I will continue to keep you updated as news develops.

Mike O’Neill
President & CEO

I register my songs with BMI (I use them because its free for songwriters, which ASCAP is not) when I put out an album. I then use the database tool to list the songs when I play them live. I don't play a lot of them, because people want to hear covers, not originals in most places. Every 6 months BMI tallies up the numbers and sends a check. As I am listed as both the songwriter AND publisher for all the songs, I get "200%" of the performance royalties. The direct deposit I got last month for the last 6 months of 2015 was about $30 - that's about $1 every time I played one of my songs. I don't know if the payoff per song would be the same if I played them more - if I did a gig of 30 songs every week X 26 weeks would I get $780?

This whole DOJ thing looks slimy, a part not mentioned in the stuff above is for songs with multiple writers - where only 1 has to give consent for song use. A lot of Pro musicians form their own publishing companies when they get big - a way to control income/taxes, I'm sure.

In the broadest sense, yes we are all self published as soon as we upload a track online. ... OK.

Yes, I was referring to this in a general sense. That's why I mentioned it was a 'miscommunication'. You were referring to this is the strictest sense where I was not.

<Fifty percent payout?? First it's pennies a month for streaming, now this?? What's next??
Seems like all of this crap started when public education started dropping the arts and sunk all of their money into athletics. This is occurring in major universities as well. Sports generates money. Music generates poverty.

The ancient Greeks found a delicate balance between both, finding them both vital to a well balanced society. Now we have professional athletes making millions of dollars a year and a school teacher lives @ the poverty level. Everything is going to hell.

Now I'm pissed...........

This will cheer you up...

Have you ever met a person who never watches sports--------Yes-----lots

Have you ever met a person who never listens to music--------no-------never

A NEW loudspeaker will allow deaf people to feel music through vibrating finger pads.

The Vibrato, still in prototype form, allows the user to distinguish between notes, rhythms and different instruments.

And by connecting it to a computer, the deaf can create music.

Inventor Shane Kerwin, of Brunel University in South West London, said: "It will mean deaf children can join in music classes in a way impossible before."

Two hundred years ago the composer Beethoven continued to write music when deaf by biting his piano to feel vibrations.