How ASCAP screws smaller artists...

... and by "smaller", I mean all but the two hundred biggest acts in America.

Zoe Keating plays cello, and does fairly well in terms of bringing in an audience and selling tickets. Obviously, there are expenses involved in hiring venues, as she explains:

For example, at one concert I played last month the gross ticket sales for the night were $9336. Of the many expenses deducted, one of the items was $86 to ASCAP.
What is this? This is the nightly portion of a license fee that the hall pays to ASCAP for the permission to perform music by ASCAP artists in their venue.

But not to worry, eh? Because Zoe is playing her own music, and is registered by ASCAP, so she'll eventually get this money back, right?

Er... no:

The customer service representative on the phone said there was nothing for me to claim. He informed me that ASCAP pays out performing royalties only to the 200 top-grossing concert tours, as determined by Pollstar. They also pay royalties for “Live symphonic and recital concerts”, whatever they are (he said I don’t quality for those).

There is some sort of grudging contest where you can register to "win" a tiny portion of the money that ASCAP have collected in your name.

ASCAP have a lot to say about the "theft" of "intellectual property", but they seem to have no problem in stealing money from all-but-200 acts to give to the 200 acts who least need the money.

The difference being, of course, that it's actual money ASCAP are stealing, rather than nebulous, potential, possible money.

EMI takes its digital rights back in house

One of the problems faced by anyone hoping to sell music online is the numerous rights bodies you have to deal with. Frankly, unless you're well-resourced from the get-go, or concentrate on an impossibly small marketplace.

So it's not entirely in anyone's interests that EMI have pulled their digital rights in the US from ASCAP to deal with them themselves.

Sure, ASCAP aren't ideal, but taking a quarter of the major acts out of ASCAP and forcing groups to have a parallel set of negotiations isn't really going to help smooth the journey from physical to digital sales.

Frankly, unless you're incredibly patient, you might just give up on the legal route altogether.

ASCAP loses it; starts to throw things at Creative Commons licences

Creative Commons is a good thing, right? If you want to use a CC licence, you can, and it's great; if you'd rather use a traditional copyright, then that's your choice. You can even mix both. Choice. Good thing, right?

Not if your business involves collecting copyright fees and then eventually distributing them. The US collection agency, ASCAP, has started to raise a fighting fund. Boing Boing:

Memehacker, and composer Mike Rugnetta just received a note from the collecting society ASCAP soliciting funds to fight Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the EFF. According to ASCAP, these organizations are mobilizing to undermine ASCAP members' copyrights because they want all music to be free. Which, if you know anything about the kind of nuanced reform work these organizations do, is a pretty gross exaggeration. The letter reads like a McCarty-era scaremongering pitch to solicit funds from composers and musicians bewildered by the current pace of music industry evolution.

The letters - in two parts on Twitpic - are more cram full o'paranoid lies than there are bubbles in an Aero bar:

[Creative Commons, Public Knowledge and the EFF] say they are advocates of consumer rights, but the truth is these groups simply do not want to pay for the use of our music.

The pitch is for people to give more money to ASCAP to campaign against CC licences, somehow.

ASCAP are trying to persuade Congress that there should be a law against people choosing to allow people to use stuff they've made without the need for a collection agency to get involved. And, brilliantly, to fund this, ASCAP are asking the members who they have passed cash to give it back to them.

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so hatefully confused.

Naturally, the people at ASCAP aren't idiots. They know that wailing that a few, small organisations are going to ruin them won't fool any of their members - even Slayer would see through that one. So they add a line to the mix describing the troops ranging against copyright:

... and technology companies with deep pockets.

Unnamed technology companies, of course, because if they named one of these supposed companies, even ASCAP know they'd be laughed at even more heartily.

ASCAP haven't said exactly how they'll spend the funds they hope to raise, but suggestions include whitewashing their windows and thousands and thousands rolls of foil.

Bruce takes name off bar tab

Here's a funny story - that's not funny-ha-ha, it's more funny-is-that-a-dead-raccoon-because-something-sure-is-stinking.

Yesterday, ASCAP, Bruce Springsteen and Clinton Ballard, Jr. filed a lawsuit against a bar in New York after a band played three Bruce songs without a licence.

Today, it turns out, Springsteen's name was put on the lawsuit with neither his approval nor knowledge:

"In regards to the ASCAP lawsuit against Connolly's Pub and Restaurant, ASCAP was solely responsible for naming Bruce Springsteen as a plaintiff in the lawsuit," Springsteen's representatives said in a statement on Thursday. "Bruce Springsteen had no knowledge of this lawsuit, was not asked if he would participate as a named plaintiff and would not have agreed to do so if he had been asked. Upon learning of this lawsuit this morning, Bruce Springsteen's representatives demanded the immediate removal of his name from the lawsuit."

I'm no moral relativist - oh, alright, I am - but isn't 'playing a couple of songs without the paperwork' less of an evil than 'stealing someone's name to bolster a lawsuit against someone who played a couple of songs without paperwork'?

Isn't this stealing Springsteen's identity? Isn't that worse than borrowing a couple of songs which didn't cost him anything?

ASCAP hope to pop a cap in copyright carpers

Ben Sheffner has some fun with the idea that ASCAP is campaigning to "shut up" campaigners for a looser copyright regime:

ASCAP is out to "shut up" its ideological opponents by sending out an email with links to articles and commentaries that support its point of view! And criticize a book by a law professor with different views on copyright law! Scary! Perhaps next week, in another bold move to silence the copyleft, they will organize a panel discussion on issues that affect songwriters and publishers. And my super-secret ASCAP sources tell me that the final stage of the "shut up the copyleft" strategy consists of drafting an op-ed to run in Billboard. With all this shutting-up going on, it's a miracle ASCAP is even allowing Techdirt to go on publishing...

It's probably fair to say that Techdirt would have been better to say "drown out" than "shut up" - after all (for the moment) ASCAP and its chums have deeper pockets than the copyleft campaigners.

On the other hand, while Sheffner is having his yuks, he does forget to engage with the sharper points in the original Digital Music News story on which TechDirt was commenting:

In a letter emailed to members, longtime ASCAP board member (and distinguished songwriter) Dean Kay stamped on the Lessig ideology. But instead of directly countering core Lessig points, Kay offered a collection of articles, reviews, and even a video interview with Stephen Colbert to undermine the less-restrictive copyright thinking that Lessig espouses.

They're using The Colbert Report as the basis of their case? What, couldn't they find a Saturday Night Live sketch that shared their views?

It's easy for Sheffner to make fun of TechDirt's histrionics; it's easy for ASCAP to assemble a few pieces on the web that don't actually consider Lessig's arguments. It's just kind of funny that neither seem to want to directly debate.

Telling fibs about Creative Commons

If you were in charge of one of the organisations raking off royalty payments for eventual distribution to singers, songwriters and other artists, you'd probably be a little nervous about Creative Commons licences, which - besides other benefits - pretty much leaves them without a role to perform and threatens their income stream.

So, it's not surprising that ASCAP have produced a document arguing why, in their opinion, CC licences are bad for artists.

The trouble is, it seems that - let's be generous - ASCAP have misunderstood some aspects of licence. While this is slightly disturbing - a body whose job is interpreting copyright law not being able to do so - the other explanation, that the errors spotted by Lawrence Lessig were deliberate, would be somewhat disturbing.