Re: help me solve the songwriters' dilemma

On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Roger Cloud <rcloud[_at_]surfnetusa.com> wrote:
>
> I am an advocate of open-sourcing and the freedom of information --
> generally. However, while I appreciate the arguments of, for example,
> Grateful Dead lyricist (and otherwise occupied) John Perry Barlow, to
> the effect that the freedom of the "information" inherent in his lyrics
> is remunerative to the songwriter by means of live performance of the
> associated band, I remain uneducated as to the benefit of the mere
> songwriter who is not associated with a particular [successful] band.

Dear Mr. Cloud,

I think many songwriters will be better rewarded if the music licensing system be modified so that:

1. All licensees have a REALISTIC option of licensing selected titles, rather than buying a license for the whole catalog;
2. The surveying practices according to which the syndicates divvy up the take are made publicly known.
3. All songwriter members of the syndicates are given an equal vote. In ASCAP, at least (as I understand) a member's voting power depends on how much the member was paid in license fees in the previous year.
4. The presence of a title in a syndicate's catalog on January 1 means that a licensee is completely immune for the entire year from any infringement actions or further billing arising out of performance of that title. When a title is transferred from one syndicate's catalog to another in the course of a year, the licensees should not be slapped with an out-of-nowhere bill from the transferee syndicate. Rather, the syndicates should settle between themselves. The next year's licenses and catalogs, naturally, will reflect the change.
5. The homestyle exemption should be more clearly defined. Perhaps the Commerce Secretary should be empowered to issue regulations defining it. These could be updated according to changes in the fashion of what constitutes a homestyle audio set.
6. Syndicate collectors should be required to be trained and held to a reasonable code of conduct. (No muscling into an old lady's house and refusing to leave until the old lady writes a check).

(A songwriter-colleage of yours, Harvey Reid, has written a good essay on problems in the music-licensing system, which can be found on-line at:

   <http://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html>)

My proposals above only touch the public performance right. The reprint right, even in a free-web world, would continue to be of some value to songwriters, since it may be long (if ever) before the web totally replaces print media; I can't put a computer on a music stand. If and when computers are the size of single sheets of paper, the makers of ROM "digital fake books" can pay royalties as print publishers would. What about RAM digital fake books, blanks to which users download musical notation from the web? Print-media fake-books are already a "problem" for the music publishing industry, so these digital versions won't make anything "worse". Placing a very large catalog in the ROM fake book and pricing it competitively might make it unnecessary to many to create a custom-downloaded book.

Finally, I think that if the powerful interests that speak piously in the name of the "struggling author" actually showed more regard to authors, and if the scope and duration of copyright were set to more reasonable levels, the public would be more agreeable toward compliance with even easy-to-evade copyright regulations. Now, when the copyright barons have extended the term of copyright to absurd lenghts and are whittling away at fair use, it is good to have Barlow acting as a thorn in their side.

Tim Phillips
<hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> Received on Sat Feb 05 2000 - 17:52:33 GMT