‘Lower ascap payments for Songs

[dan p]

So I just received an e-mail from Crucial concerning payments for songs placed
with vocals.
They have now reduced vocal songs royalties to that of instrumental music.
Now all the extra work to make vocals,melodies,and music work in a catchy creative way
has further been cheapened by the Music Business.
I dont do any vocal songs but I would say this takes some steam out of doing it in the first place.
Still some will make it through the maze but now continuing down the road of harder
to make it all happen literally putting the squeeze on everyone.
Whats next.Reduced rates for backround,its already micro money.

[Dawn Wisner-Johnson]

Dan – ASCAP has reduced payments, however the other PROs are still paying a higher rate for background vocal.  There have been other changes implemented at ASCAP apparently as well as we have navigated through the past two months talking with songwriters and composers.  There is a petition that has just started this week due to the way ASCAP implemented these changes, and how drastically it has affected many songwriters (70-90%).  It’s not ok.  Go to change.org and search ASCAP to find the petition if you want to help with not allowing companies to “put the squeeze” on everyone.

[Art Munson]

It is a good thing that a petition is being started and that songwriters are talking to ASCAP. But will these efforts really do anything? I think that composers could better spend their energies doing other things.

[Advice]

>>>> I think that composers could better spend their energies doing other things

I think unless you are someone who makes their income or is looking to make their income from vocal songs, that’s easy for YOU to say. Some folks livelihoods are at stake.

[Redster]

Hey, folks,

ASCAP is not going to be paying less for songs across the board. What they plan to do is to not automatically bump a song with vocals into a FEATURE designation. Songs coming out of juke boxes (background vocals) were given “featured” status when they were just background elements, yet instrumental pieces used in identical situations were ALWAYS noted as a background instrumentals. Very unfair. This has been the normal practice at ASCAP, and score composers have been bitching about it for years (score being paid at 20% of the vocal songs rate).

So now, if a song/vocal is designated as a “background vocal” on a cue sheet, it will receive background vocal status, instead of being arbitrarily and automatically bumped into a featured vocal status. Which is how it should be, and always should have been.

Unfortunately, this is not going to make any difference to the score composer, whose work is automatically given “background instrumental” status, EVEN if the instrumental score is over an important montage (a song will still be allowed the “featured vocal” status for such a use). The only “bump” a composer ever gets is if the piece is considered a “theme” or is opening or end title music.

So songwriters, don’t go moaning about how unfair the change is. You’re just going to have your songs treated as a background element UNLESS they are actually being used in featured positions — the way it always should have been.

Now, if ASCAP were to say that they planned to pay based on HOW all music is used instead of what KIND of music is used, then I might be pulling out the pom poms, because then we’d have real parity.

The other PROs treat background vocals as a background use — they are NOT automatically bumped to a featured vocal status as ASCAP has been doing for years. Only when a song actually is a featured vocal and noted so on the cue sheet does it receive that designation, allowing it to be paid at a higher rate.

The big question should be: What is ASCAP going to do with all that extra money they will have lying around that is no longer being unfairly paid out to songwriters? (which, by the way, has always been at the score composers’ expense)

Songwriters have been running things at ASCAP for decades, which is why the payments have always been skewed in their favor, when they should NOT have been. So now, perhaps, there will be a push for TRUE fairness for ALL composers and songwriters (and maybe composers will stop putting in superfluous  “want you, baby, ooh” vocals into primarily instrumental tracks, just to try and get more back-end).

Cheers!

Gael MacGregor

P.S. I’m a songwriter who believes in parity for all composers and songwriters. I find it almost amusing that the powers-that-be are doing such a great job of having us bicker amongst ourselves instead of banding together to fight the real enemy — the corporate & PRO folks who have systematically cheapened the perceived value of our work, and have profited and pocketed so much of what should have been going to the CREATORS of the works.

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