November 2007

Steve Gillette's ASCAP Song

As I promised in last month's column, here's a bit more about PROs, featuring some wise words by Steve Gillette on the subject. After this I promise I'll get back to some serious goofyness in coming columns.

Last month I talked about my own experiences with and opinions about Performance Rights Organizations (PROs), like Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) and The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). As I mentioned, I do think the idea behind these organizations is a good one -- facilitating the collection of royalties owed songwriters by parties who wish to use their work publicly -- but in practice, particularly on the smaller end of the music business, the system has become unreasonable and unfair, for folks on both sides of the formula.

The rise of the group of entertainers called "singer-songwriters" (in which, on good days, I include myself) has resulted in a new awareness of the oddities of PROs, since singer-songwriters are in a roundabout, indirect, but annoying way being charged to perform songs to which they own the copyrights themselves. The singer-songwriter straddles what was once a sometimes big gap between performers and writers. Not only that, on this tiny end of the business, the performer very often has a personal relationship with the venue too, if not an actual stake in it. Performers host house concerts for other performers, songwriters open tiny coffeehouses, and so forth.

Thus many singer-songwriters, as writers aware of the need for some sort of royalty collection procedure, are at the same time upset by the legitimate complaints about the dysfunctional practices of PROs and the effect they have on the whole small end of the music scene.

My pal and songwriting guru Steve Gillette has come up with an idea: "[My partner] Cindy and I have thought we would ask [songwriters] for written permission to perform the songs of [theirs] that we do... so that we could perform them for venues who might have a problem with the PROs." Steve would carry signed documents from songwriters granting him the right to perform their songs, and would provide copies of these documents for the venues where he played, thus bypassing PROs.

Currently, with all the liability of copyright infringement being on the shoulders of the venue and not the performer, I think some things would have to change before this could be implemented. But I do think it's a great idea.

And Steve couldn't leave it at that, of course, but wrote a wonderful song (see below) about the whole issue. My thanks to Steve Gillette for helping with this month's WZ. More on Steve and his partner Cindy Mangsen at:
www.CompassRoseMusic.com

The ASCAP Song
Words & Music by Steve Gillette
"There is no copyright on this song, it is in the public domain" -- Steve

I used to play at a little coffeehouse, down along the shore.
It was a one-man operation, there was no charge at the door.
They used to pass a basket and we'd all just play for tips.
Sometimes enough for gas or a plate of fish and chips.

But a couple of my songs got picked up by singers on the big time labels.
When I hit the top of the national charts my wife was still waitin' tables.
A couple of gold records later, I was livin' like a star.
Had the house with the pool in the Hollywood Hills and an E-type Jaguar.

One day I went to visit my old friend down at the beach.
I felt like I was livin' proof that no dream was out of reach.
But the place was closed and boarded up and took me half a day to find him.
He told me sadly that the coffeehouse and the music was all behind him.

He said, "The money men from ASCAP came and shut me down.
They've forced everybody else to sign, got their stickers all over town."
At a hundred and fifty a year I figured that wasn't too bad.
When they raised it four-hundred more, they took everything I had.

He said, "I don't mind payin' the writers, but these kids never see a dime.
Most all of it goes to the superstars on corporation time.
You can't even whistle dixie or sing a goddamned lullaby
Well they can keep their royal tribute and kiss my ASCAP goodbye."

So I went home and wrote a letter to the big guys in New York.
I said, "I know you've got signed contracts on all my early work.
But from now on let this letter be my written guarantee.
Any song I write, the live performance rights are free."

I've got something to say with the songs I write and nobody speaks for me.
If you want to sing a song of mine, performance rights are free.
It's the songwriters' first amendment, it's what music used to be.
So sing this song and pass it along, the performance rights are free.