| General Bobby Farrell | Bobby Farrell Promotions | Vandor Company Directory |
ARTICLE 03 |
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Misram Alheid, International Industrial Review, Investigative Reporter, New Delhi, India In a land of over 200 languages and an ancient taste for music, we have fewer myths and outright lies about records and publishing in our entire nation than you'll find on the sidewalks of 16th Avenue, Nashville, alone. If New York's lying-myth system were garbage, their famed mass of Sky Scrapers would be little more than prickly thorns at the bottom of the pile. The Los Angeles cum Hollywood mess can be smelled as far East as Tokyo with the wind due West at Hurricane speed. And the one myth leading the parade? Any money you have to invest is "paying for publishing"! If you're not willing to invest in your own business for your own career - why should anyone else? ASCAP, BMI and SESAC have shot down more legitimate record deals with their 'paying for publishing' lies than all the street cons, preachers and politicians combined. Because record investments are often substantial those new to the Industry will contact ASCAP, BMI or SESAC for information. What they get is The Great Grand Series of Defamations and Damned Lies designed to eliminate any and all competition that might infringe on their own respective Pay Cliques! Record Companies do not pay all the bills! Anyone capable of kindergarten arithmetic can see why. Publishers do not pay all the bills! The same kindergarten arithmetic shows they can't afford it either. The fact there is a lot of money in a selling record is buffered by the odds of only one album out of eight ever selling any copies at all! Dividing the cost of producing and promoting a record between the Executive Producers, Labels, Publisher(s) and General Licensers doesn't increase the odds, it simply lowers the price to gamble! Should the content (songs) manage to log any air play, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will reputedly collect and disburse the earnings via 'their own monitoring'. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will also spare no effort to smear and defame anyone who asks an Executive Producer for their share of the promotion budget! ASCAP, BMI and SESAC also know for a fact that each and every one of their Pay Clique members have to pay their share of each and every recording project they're involved with. The unnumbered fools who get taken by the 'send it in' song shark scams and the 'your song in an album' on Stupid Jerk Records (not to be confused with Promolibraries, Electronic Music Services or the Super Six General Licensers) is as appalling as the perpetual lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC that any costs borne for production or promotion by whoever wants to make a record is 'paying for publishing'! Nor does it justify their deliberate omission that not only does being one's own Executive Producer (ExP) double the mechanical (record sales) royalties, it also guarantees: a 100% choice of music to record, a 100% decision in the finished mix, a 100% ownership of the masters, and a 100% control over your career! All record companies pay earnings to FIVE entities: 1., Artist; 2., Executive Producer; 3., Record Label; 4., Music Publisher(s); and 5., themselves as General Licenser. Music Publishers pay the songwriter(s) any mechanical royalties, usually a full fifty percent of the remainder after limited expenses. However, publishers do not pay songwriters an equal split of Public Performance (airplay) royalties, as the affiliation agency has reputedly already made that separation at their 'payment' to both parties. (That is if you're a member of one of their Pay Cliques!) Now put that together: YOU are the Executive Producer producing YOU as the Artist; and that's TWO (2) shares of mechanical earnings from record sales paid direct to YOU by the General Licenser or Record Company! Now since YOU are paying all the recording and a share of promotion costs: YOU'RE A FOOL TO RECORD ANYBODY ELSE'S COMPOSITIONS BUT YOUR OWN; and that's another FIFTY PERCENT of a mechanical share from airplay and the publisher! Next, when and if you can blackmail ASCAP, BMI or SESAC (however you're affiliated) into paying you the Public Performance (airplay earnings) as the songwriter: your Return On Investment (ROI) Radio air play royalties begin about TWELVE CENTS per logged play times the stations of the same programming in that market. They go up in a series of plateaus until at ONE MILLION accumulated plays, as a songwriter not per song, to FORTY EIGHT CENTS per logged play times the stations in the market being 'monitored' of the same programming format, etcetera. Now you know why ASCAP, BMI and SESAC spare no effort to gut anyone who isn't in their Pay Cliques! They want to keep all those mechanical and public performance royalties to themselves! If there are no other records available, The Cliques have the entire Field to themselves! Five of the Super Six General Licensers have closed door policies to limit the amount of new releases, artists and songwriters into the market. Vandor is the only General Licenser with an open door policy in all fields of music. The Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will give you every reason known to mankind to prevent you from doing business with anyone who permits YOU to own and control your product and primarily with the "paying for publishing" scenario. They'll profess 'not to endorse any record company' and in the same breath tell you that Sony (CBS), Bertlesmann (RCA), Universal (MCA), etcetera, will be a better deal: yet they will not open those doors for you unless you're a member of the United States Senate! If YOU want to be in the business of making money with your music, then be ready to invest in your music like any other business! Think about it, why should any business, including a record company, finance anyone who won't invest in themselves? Are you going to stay out of music just because The Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will tell any lie to keep you out of their multibillion dollar per year Super Graft gold mine? And, tragically, because money talks the entire Industry is overloaded with talentless racket, the Nashville MONOTONE being a bit more palatable than some other fields. Every truly original thought in music since the invention of records has come from the independent 'looking for a break'. It's a good Industry, with a lot of good people in it, despite The Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. But be prepared to be your own Executive Producer once you have that all-important EXECUTIVE PRODUCER'S RECORD RELEASE AGREEMENT for you or your Artists. Once you have an ExP Release Agreement (the short term) you can record and produce as many or as few Artists as you want - and get each and every one of them the same Financial Support |
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Since new count began, 22 April 2008.
