A message from Paul Williams, President of ASCAP

[rbowser-]

The ASCAP Legislative Fund For The Arts (http://www.magnetmail.net/actions/email_web_version.cfm?recipient_id=192420581&message_id=1039704&user_id=ASCAP)

Randy

[rbowser-]

No thoughts?

I posted Paul's letter at one of the Sonar Forums also - Very lively discussion over there:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2039442

I'd be interested to hear what folks here think.

Randy

[LFO]

A timely and important message. We all know ASCAP does not have the resources these other special interest groups do. The thought of making our hard earned material compromised in any way when it comes to compensation needs to be fought. I'll be donating to be sure.

-Kevin

[rbowser-]

Thanks for the post, Kevin - And I'm glad to see someone in support of this.

You should see the thread over at the Sonar "Coffee House"---It's anarchy there over this!


Randy

[rpearl]

No thoughts?

I posted Paul's letter at one of the Sonar Forums also - Very lively discussion over there:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2039442

I'd be interested to hear what folks here think.

Randy


No thoughts? How can I post thoughts when the forum is "down for 5 minutes", but is unavailable for hours...Sorry - don't mean to take your head off.

The letter is a good one, but I do have some reservations. Where I teach, we discuss the file-sharing-digital-this-no-I-don't-want-to-pay issue all the time. Of course composers and performers need and deserve to be compensated; however, the means whereby they/we have been protected have been heavy handed, and ignorant - or at least ignoring - the realities of the digital age. The genie is out of the box, and not going back in. We all need to think about how we can make music and make money given that everything will and can be stolen. Not that ASCAP is wrong, but the "music will end as we know it" prophecies don't help; and, perhaps the "music as we WILL know it" may actually be an improvement.

Thanks for posting this, Randy!

[rbowser-]

No thoughts? How can I post thoughts when the forum is "down for 5 minutes", but is unavailable for hours...Sorry - don't mean to take your head off.
I'm Ok! My head's still on- as well as it ever is anyway.

But yeah, looked like the programmers were scrambling to fix the Forum last night, and while it was inconvenient for us, it was good to see they seem to be aware of problems and are trying to fix them. Unfortunately, I don't see any improvements today.

EDIT: The above which I've put in italics is not correct. I tried the Display Thread Options after writing this post, and they're working. SO it looks like all problems were indeed fixed up last night when they were working on the Forum- Everything's working for me at least.


The letter is a good one, but I do have some reservations. Where I teach, we discuss the file-sharing-digital-this-no-I-don't-want-to-pay issue all the time. Of course composers and performers need and deserve to be compensated; however, the means whereby they/we have been protected have been heavy handed, and ignorant - or at least ignoring - the realities of the digital age. The genie is out of the box, and not going back in. We all need to think about how we can make music and make money given that everything will and can be stolen. Not that ASCAP is wrong, but the "music will end as we know it" prophecies don't help; and, perhaps the "music as we WILL know it" may actually be an improvement.

Thanks for posting this, Randy!
Good to read your thoughts, Ron. It's definitely a tricky subject, and I'm not aware of any positive, definitive answer to the questions about the future of music.

When Paul Williams talks about music ending as we know it, I think he's picturing a future where it's a free-for-all scramble for songwriters to be heard on the internet which results in most music just getting lost in the wash. And a future where some dedicated musicians and composers will still pour their lives into creating music, but will have very little, if any possibility of making a living with their craft, since the music industry will be dead and gone, and the public will no longer pay to hear anything.

And a future where the value of music will go down even more in the general public's consciousness, because of the unfortunate truism that when something is free, it's not taken as seriously, is taken more for granted and --well, it just isn't valued.

That's a phenomenon I've observed in theatre for many years. People who buy tickets to a show have a vested interest in being entertained - They've put their money down with the expectation of getting something worthwhile in return. But people who are given free tickets, "comps," can often be the worst members of an audience, because they have no vested interest in being there. It's free, it must not be any good, they don't Attend as completely as the ticket buyers.

And so on.

I've written to ASCAP, hoping to have someone there write a response to the horribly negative thread at the Sonar Forum. It could possibly help some folks see more clearly the value of what the organization is trying to do.

Thanks again, Ron.

Randy

[pokeefe]

And a future where some dedicated musicians and composers will still pour their lives into creating music, but will have very little, if any possibility of making a living with their craft ...
I think for classical musicians that's already the case ... without much help or hindrance from the internet.

Pat

[SeanHannifin]

ASCAP's letter here is pretty vague on what exactly they want to do. Donating to ASCAP based only on this letter seems a bit... blind... or at least quite trusting.

Saying "the truth is these groups [including Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and technology companies with deep pockets (what companies are those?)] simply do not want to pay for the use of our music" seems a pretty bold claim, and it's not backed up by any hard evidence. I can see why it would be controversial.

And saying "the music will dry up" is just wrong and stupid. ~|

Overall, I appreciate what ASCAP does, but I take any letter like this with a grain of salt. They're asking for money and not being specific about what exactly they're going to do with it, and they're using ridiculously apocalyptic rhetoric I just don't agree with.