| General Bobby Farrell | Bobby Farrell Promotions | Vandor Company Directory |
ARTICLE 09 |
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Jeremiah Jacob Jacoby, International Industrial Review, Investigative Reporter, New York, NY New York City. Once the great Mecca of print publishers and now the Great Grand Sewer of Entertainment Industry myths and deliberate distortions. New York City has produced and perpetuated more outright contemptible damned lies than all other so-called music capitols combined! Those of us of Jewish extraction are familiar with the old saying "A half truth is a whole lie", and the New York Music Industry, specifically ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, do not even have the pretense of so much as a half truth. The first Great Myth: is the deliberate distortion that because PUBLISHING IS FREE TO SONGWRITERS everything else is reputedly 'free' through out the entire Entertainment Industry. Promotion and Distribution is not 'free'! Neither is recording production, ASCAP's, BMI's and SESAC's damned lies to the contrary notwithstanding. PUBLISHING IS FREE TO SONGWRITERS! But it ends there and stays ended there! Being one's own Executive Producer and paying those relevant costs is not 'paying for publishing'. However, the Great Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will purport that spending any money for anything is a no-no except to their Pay Clique Members who pay their share of a record investment just like everybody else! There are THREE (3) elements of recorded music that are not only totally separate and non-related, they are critical to the investment and expertise of each and every record: (1) Music Publishers: who not only print song sheets, books and folios (usually by licensing them to PRINT publishers with their own wholesale and retail chains), they also attempt to license their works to Record Labels and Trade Publications that cater to song lyric content in addition to background music users such as Muzak, and television and motion picture inclusions; (2) Record Labels: who license, manufacture and release recorded music wherever recordings or their content can be used for profit as well as direct sales via existing commercial distribution and marketing outlets; and (3) General Licensers: who are the Big Administrative and Finance Houses, with all the facilities, and sound business principals expertise, to cover all the bases of this very complex and risky Industry. And all it takes is MONEY! The second Great Myth is: that once a song is contracted to a publisher that it's a surefire fact the song is going to be recorded and make everybody a million bucks! The Great Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will tell you to "get a publisher and don't pay any money", and in the same breath they confirm that getting a song recorded, and making any money on it once you do get it recorded, is only a shot in the dark at the very best. In fact, only ONE song in 5,000 ever makes any real money. That doesn't mean there isn't a solid return on investment, it just means that not every song is going to pay a million dollars. The fact is: Executive Producers who pay all their own production and their share of promotion costs aren't going to record anybody's music they can't make a solid return on: i.e. paying themselves instead of anybody else! It's not a matter of a good song selling a lot of records, it's a matter of the content of their record paying the investors as much Return On Investment as possible. If YOU were paying all those bills whose music would YOU record? YOUR OWN! But the Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will advise against paying any portion of production or promotion even as your own Executive Producer! Read the credits of virtually all 'name' records, motion pictures and TV programs and you'll find the STAR is usually their own Executive Producer! Peter Falk of "Columbo" and Angela Lansbury of "Murder, She Wrote" for solid examples. The fact is: Music Publishers don't spend one dime knocking on doors to hawk songs in their catalog! All they do is advise the General Licensers as to available budget and take their choice of whatever is up for the next distributed release! And they only get that chance if the General Licenser's in-house publishers either don't have the budget or necessary material for the Artist. If YOU were a publisher would you finance someone nobody ever heard tell of, or invest in a KNOWN quantity of business expertise? The Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI and SESAC will tell you to "make a better demo" and send it to everybody in the book knowing damned well their respective Pay Clique Members are spending money hand over fist to get their songs recorded and released on distributed Labels! If you're ignorant enough to believe ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, then you're welcome to stay out of this Industry as long as you want to! The fact is: Record Labels don't have to spend one penny to 'discover' anybody! They may have to spend a bit to shelve someone to keep them out of competition with an artist they have a huge investment in under disguise of 'discovering', but for no other reason. The Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and at least six of the nine General Licensers will tell you "talent is the only way to go" and turn you down for a contract in the same breath! If you're stupid enough to believe the 'talent' nonsense then YOU are keeping yourself out of competition and nobody in the Industry has to spend so much as one more penny to keep you out! The fact is: General Licensers aren't in business to humor perpetuated myths and delusions of the Industry: they're in business to make money selling records! They have all necessary facilities and expertise to process, manufacture, layout, print, promote, advertise, license, market, distribute, merchandise and sell records and Artists world wide. The Grand Liars at ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and said six or so General Licensers will stop at nothing to keep those facilities exclusively to themselves because it's cheaper than competing in an open market! And MONEY is the name of the game. NEVER pay a 'publisher' for "professional lead sheets" (which haven't been used for thirty years!), "a better demo" or ANYTHING ELSE a publisher does to exploit a song! And don't expect to earn more than a pittance at best unless YOU or someone with money to burn INVESTS A LOT OF MONEY in production, promotion and distribution of a record containing your song! Even when distributed by one of the Super Six General Licensers the odds are only one out of eight the record will sell any copies at all! NEVER confuse paying all or part of production, promotion, etcetera, with 'paying for publishing' because it is not! Neither Executive Producers, Record Labels, Publishers or General Licensers are bottomless pits of money: and none are in business to make millionaires out of non-investors! NEVER pay anybody "to have your song in ..." unless that Artist records for a Label licensed and distributed by one of the Super Six General Licensers! However, there are a few quality Radio Compilations that are not 'your song in an album' scams and should not be confused with such. CDX and Stardust, both out of Nashville are two examples of solid and legitimate compilations - that deliver what they say they will deliver without any nonsense attached. NEVER confuse a Promoter as being a DISTRIBUTOR! Or a local Distributor with being a NATIONAL or WORLD WIDE GENERAL LICENSER! They are not the same thing. One is a wholesaler, the other SELLS TO wholesalers. And NEVER expect someone else to pay all the bills and then give YOU all the money! Unless you're a total idiot. |
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Since new count began, 22 April 2008.
