|
|
ASCAP Tries to Bill AzOz.com For Cover Songsby George Ziemann -- June 11, 2009 Here is a condensed version of an e-mail I received from ASCAP yesterday.
The first thing I noticed is that there is apparently a new batch of ASCAP employees (the old ones weren't allowed to lobby in Obama's administration, so they had to be replaced).
They've got it all wrong. I turned this into a music-oriented site in 2001, when Hayden's Wall was formed. The music we added was our own. In 2002, to "enhance our appeal," I started pointing out what lying bastards everyone in the industry had turned out to be. In 2003, they started proving me right by suing the first college-age fans, and things have been going pretty well ever since. As a musician, I've been earning money for both ASCAP and BMI songwriters for decades, merely by performing in clubs that pay the fees. Of course, no one keeps track of what is actually played, so the method of determining who should get paid these performance royalties seems to be based on pure conjecture. It's the same precise method they use for radio.
I perform music because it's what I do. It's therapeutic. Group therapy, if you will. I'm also an ASCAP writer and publisher, with a 15-song album exactly one piano track away from being complete. I expected to finish it last night (then I saw the e-mail), but I haven't registered any of the songs with ASCAP and one of the authors is not a member, so... No Big Surprise Anyone who has been reading this site long enough to understand my basic temperment plus what I think of ASCAP, the RIAA, etc., is probably surprised that I'm not already going ballistic over this. I've been taunting ASCAP about the issue of cover songs for a few years now. While the RIAA was out suing everyone they could, they were searching for their sound recordings. So cover songs have been fair game, so to speak. Whether or not they had the right to collect royalties all along was not an issue because they hadn't figured out how to bill for the internet. Even if you got in their face, they wouldn't acknowledge you, except under an alias in message boards. Truth is that ASCAP was lying low, letting the RIAA get first in line when it came to Internet royalties, waited quietly until the RIAA got their unprecedented webcast performance royalty before they even made a squeak about songwriters. The Solution We had a dozen or so cover songs that I recorded at a live gig in January, 2008, plus a couple more that started as throw-away acoustic versions and I added instrumentation to. I don't know where ASCAP came up with their price, but I almost sell enough in advertising every year to pay the hosting fees. There is one paid ad on the front page and another on this 2002 article, which is consistently my highest read page. I do not allow ads on the music page. If I'm making money from ASCAP songs on this site, where the fuck is it? I had the two advertisers before I put the cover songs up, plus a couple more front page advertisers that dropped out shortly after I added the cover songs to the music page. I'm making less money and, according to record industry logic, the inclusion of ASCAP songs has already driven away $400 in advertiser income, plus the time and expense of recording, mixing, editing, etc. a live performance at a club that paid ASCAP fees. The primary purpose of the cover songs was to provide a sample to clubowners to get gigs which would, theoretically, lead to those artists getting paid through the club owners' fees. It's not like it's all we had, but the club owners usually want to hear you playing a few covers. So basically, it would cost us $340 a year to let you hear our version of "Strawberry Fields Forever," or our CSN&Y parody, "Oh My Oh." So all of them are gone. Every cover song and some that may be public domain but I'm taking them down until I know absolutely, positively for sure. The Questions Is this the next stage of repression, asking ASCAP fees from band websites? Steven Van Zandt recently complained about kids not learning the ropes, studying the greats and imitating them. This is one of many perfect examples of why this is true. Because if you do, you're not allowed to show anyone. In the end, what good has this minor annoyance done except free up some web space on my server that was filled with not-spectacular live versions of cover songs? I did spent an inordinate amount of time on our version of "Strawberry Fields Forever," but even with it gone from the web, the process of taking Carl and an acoustic guitar, then trying to replicate everything else myself was a learning opportunity well worth the time even if no one hears it again ( or had ever heard it before besides myself and Carl). Assuming we were doing this, and kept the cover songs (and we didn't), if 95 percent of the listens/downloads are the songs we wrote, do we get 95% of the money back? Would each individual artist on my pages get paid their portion of the $340 according to their downloads? I'm guessing not, especially since Carl and I are the only ASCAP members. Cara and Tim wouldn't receive their fair songwriting share, no matter what. So all ASCAP songs that we don't own are gone and I cross-my-heart-promise to never, ever, ever record a cover song again, no matter what van Zandt says. And perhaps it's worth developing a preference for BMI cover tunes in live shows. I'm not seeing how this helped anyone, except maybe me. Now that they've noticed my traffic and we've eliminated all the ASCAP music that isn't our own, do I start collecting royalties? Or do they suddenly not count? Or do they out-stupid the RIAA by trying to make me pay royalties for giving away free copies of our own music? Because that would be really, really fun. |
|