| General Bobby Farrell | Bobby Farrell Promotions | Vandor Company Directory |
ARTICLE 01 |
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Corabin Thessleux International Industrial Review, Investigative Reporter, Bruxells, Belgium Recorded Music is a multi-billion dollar per year Industry. Most of those billions are wasted on well intentioned, but worthless, what-won't-work scams, schemes and scenarios. The EEC is deluged with foreign product, most of which gets counterfeited by licensers, labels or sub-publishers. Even so, the outright thievery by the United States' public performance licensing agencies: (ASCAP) American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers; (BMI) Broadcast Music, Incorporated and SESAC (which stands for SESAC?); make EEC counterfeiters look like rank amateurs by comparison. The scam is simple, even if legal, and they've been doing it for years! They profess to 'monitor' broadcasters, count the plays of music in their respective catalogues, divide the license fees (after expenses!) between the publishers and songwriters, and pay the due amounts every quarter. The fact is: 'monitoring' is strictly controlled, limited to broadcasters who program music published or written by their Elite Cliques! The few 'other' stations that do get 'monitored' are carefully chosen 'followers' of the 'in' programming to insure as much money as possible is retained, by hard documentation, for said Elite Clique members. In short, stations who play only Billboard 'chart' records, which are determined by cash 'advertising' and NOT what listeners want to hear! Therefore, their reputed 60,000 hours of 'monitoring' done by outside agencies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are nothing more than a system of controls to insure their Elite Clique members get the lion's share of all public performance monies. To be sure, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC all pay a pittance list of members (for years on end whether they've released anything or not!), lest the whole scam be revealed by proper questioning! Something 'the courts' have proven to be incapable of doing. The thoroughly corrupt courts of our own EEC should take lessons in moral degeneracy from courts in the United States, and could get Magna cum Laude PhDs in blatant stupidity from the United States District Court, Southern District of New York! That 'court' has rubber-stamped every non-public scam of ASCAP since 1941, and has kept: United States vs ASCAP, et al., running ever since! At least their antics make money for the lawyers. We don't know WHEN, WHERE, HOW or HOW MUCH various 'court' officials get paid, but we suspect tee times, the golf course, in cash, and lots of it: or else this scam would have been shut down years ago! The fact that said 'court officials', primarily Judges, are appointed to ASCAP's 'review boards' upon 'retirement' from the Bench! Now you know "why" ASCAP never loses a case against it's members and Members never win a case against ASCAP! It's a matter of nine wolves and one sheep deciding what to have for lunch. And it's prima facie evidence of a totally corrupt, ASCAP-bought-and-paid-for 'court' as charged throughout these IIR articles. Initially ASCAP, BMI and SESAC operated on about SIXTEEN PERCENT (16%) of gross collected revenues. Today that's about what gets distributed! There's obviously some very expensive overhead. Overhead 'the courts' are reluctant to question, and over which the membership has absolutely no control. Tie that together with their continual 'improved distribution' scenarios that benefit only the Elite Clique, and it doesn't take a brain surgeon to comprehend ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are Recorded Music's WORST SCAMS! ASCAP, BMI and SESAC collect (or should that be extort?) millions of dollars every year in 'license' fees from broadcasters, live music venues including night clubs, background music systems such as MUZAK, cable television and just about everywhere else music is used in public for profit. The cold hard fact that most of that money is siphoned into the bank accounts of the Elite Cliques or wasted on over-priced employee 'benefits', all duly endorsed by 'the courts' is an abominable affront to justice and the free enterprise economic system! The only real differences between ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are telephone numbers and addresses. The thievery is the same and their 'excuse' is the same. The most long-running of which is, "make sure your work is cleared" so they can LOSE the damned thing before your earnings are paid! Most performers do not know that night clubs where they hope to be discovered are literally blackmailed into paying ASCAP, BMI and as often as not SESAC, a 'license' fee based on the number of live music nights times the seating of the house! Most performers also do not know that even though they perform their own compositions: just as much a public performance for profit as any other song; they will never collect one penny for those efforts! The entire royalty 'distribution' scam is based solely and exclusively on 'monitored' radio air play! endorsement of the courts! Let's explain the scam one more time so even those nitwit 'judges' who get a chance to read this column can also understand it. 1. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC contract to represent authors, composers and publishers of musical works; 2. They 'license' said works to music users who use them for profit; 3. They determine royalty 'distribution' only by their own 'monitored' broadcast airplay; 4. They 'monitor' only the clique broadcasters who program only works of and by their Elite Clique members; 5. They pay their Elite Clique the lion's share of collected 'license' fees; 6. They pay a select clique a continual pittance to cover the scam; and 7. Legally rob everybody else with the court's full approval! What can be done about it? Legally, nothing! Violence is outlawed, and that's the only language corrupt politicians, including those on court benches, really understand. However, if the law were changed: A: To require payment by users only when they were documentably monitored, and only for the period of documented monitoring; and B: Only upon billing on behalf of those whose music was actually used! There would be a massive improvement in 'distribution' preceded by equally monstrous howls of resistance from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC! It's hard to tell what kind of a roar the 'courts' would produce, since they too would be losing out on a great deal of graft from the public performance gold mine of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Recorded Music could certainly use an honest Public Performance Licensing Agency. Those who are being robbed should be about the business of establishing it. Like everything else in Business: it would take a little money! |
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Since new count began, 22 April 2008.
