Re: Composers should also get paid

[Bill Fox <billyfox@soundscapes.us>]

Stefan Tiedje wrote:

> Per Boysen schrieb:
>
>> On the other hand, it may be that the RIAA are using too heavy tools 
>> as their administrative routines when assembling the tariffs  for 
>> using others songs in public (money that are distributed back to the 
>> composers). But be careful not throwing away the respect for 
>> composer's work only because of some brown shirt attitude clerks.
>
> What they asked for must have been significantly more than they paid 
> for the pianist alone,

Of course, because it's a year-long license.  But then the music in the 
joint is covered for a year.  Like someone said in a previous post, that 
turns out to be about $20 per week.  I don't know the cost of the 
license so I can't say how accurate that figure is.  I'm sure that the 
cost varies with venue size.  In the US, you'll often see a license 
posted on the wall that declares the legal capacity that the local 
authorities allow in a venue.

> with the result that the composer gets nothing and the pianist lost 
> his job. My experience with the RIAA/Gema family of corporations is, 
> that they claim they protect the artists, but they are only interested 
> to protect the publishers. There is a reason why Stockhausen founded 
> his own publishing company...

So he wouldn't have to share his money with a publisher.  That has 
nothing to do with PROs.  True, the PROs pay the publishers and 
publishers typically take half and pay the remainder to the composer.  
But if you don't have a publisher, the you are, essentially, 
self-publishing and the PRO must pay you directly, leaving no "middle 
man" to take half.

> They look where the big bucks are and don't care about the small. I am 
> still memeber of the Gema but seriously considering to quit, because 
> they do a bad job... (95% of all Gema authorities are purely lawers...)
>
> If you should get small amounts of money, like maybe 5 Euros from a 
> web radio, the Gema won't pay it to you, because its so little, 
> instead they collect it and distribute it mainly to the big guys who 
> have too much already. I'd love to find a authors rights corpoartion 
> which would allow me to puplish my work under a creative commons 
> license and still let them effectively take care about royalties for 
> commercial use...

IF a PRO like GEMA isn't meeting the needs of its members, then either 
the members need to band together and force them to change from within 
or they need to leave and find a PRO that *does* meet their needs... 
*if* there is one!

Cheers,

Bill