Marilyn Bergman
ASCAP
One Lincoln Plaza
New York, NY 10023
March 22, 2003
Dear Marilyn,
I am appalled to discover that ASCAP has taken the position
of characterizing the audience we are trying to reach as "a
very powerful majority that sees nothing wrong with using our
music without paying for it."
I would like to remind that until this "climate of technological
innovation" arrived, our greatest vehicle for promotion
and distribution had been radio.
Has not radio led the consumer to believe that music was free
to listen to? Have the labels not been paying "independent
promoters" to get their music played on the radio, as Don
Henley recently asserted in front of the Senate Commerce Committee
(Jan 30, 2003)?
Why are we now supposed to view our fans, who are actively
promoting us by spreading inferior promotional versions (mp3s)
of our music, as criminals trying to steal from us?
Are not the greatest costs to the recording industry those
of marketing, promotion and distribution? Everyone keeps telling
me so as the basis for not paying a more reasonable artist royalty.
The mp3 file has offered the industry a virtually free promotion
and marketing tool. You have chosen to demonize it, criminalize
it and are now blaming the consumer for the industry's problems
because they listened to these promotional samples and have the
audacity to think that they shouldn't pay to listen to our advertisements
for ourselves.
If the intent of ASCAP is to join the RIAA in its persecution
of the consumer for the benefit of the major labels, you do not
represent the interests of myself or the other 97 percent of
the recording artists in the country that are not signed to the
major labels. According to the Recording Artists Coalition, you
might not represent them, either.
Having just recently had my ASCAP publisher application accepted,
I was anxious to get my growing catalog listed. However, I am
suddenly hesitant to register my songs or those of others with
ASCAP. File-sharing and mp3 files have enabled me to reach a
global audience for $20 a month. Until this point in time, my
greatest obstacle has been how to get people to search for my
music, as opposed to that of the major labels.
On the other hand, you could be interpreted as being the independent
artists' greatest ally. For every act signed to a major label,
there are 100 indie acts which are not. Please take the RIAA
music off the peer-to-peer networks so that people will stop
looking for them and find our songs.
The rest of us do not want our fans to be punished for advertising
us. They are our "independent promotors" that the labels
apparently pay so much for. Ours work for free. They wear our
t-shirts and give away free samples.
If you want to punish them for providing this free service,
I don't want my songs used as evidence.
