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Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
 ·Comcast
 ·Embarq
|  ASCAP's Latest Claim!
 How quickly we forget: Check this link to an article from 1996 in the New York Times.
»www.nytimes.com/1996/12/17/nyreg···nted=all
In 1996 ASCAP send a demand letter to the Girl Scouts of America demanding payment for public performances of copyrighted songs. Were where these songs being performed. Around the Girl Scouts campfires.
What is worse is that Irving Berlin who was one of the major financial contributor to creation of the Girl and Boy Scouts of America, composed "God Bless America". In 1940 Irving Berlin donated all future royalties from "God Bless America" to the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.
This means that every time "God Bless America" was sung around a Girl Scout Campfire ASCAP would expect to be compensated so they could get their cut before the balance of the royalty payment was paid to non other than the Girl Scouts of America. | |
rcdailey
Dragoonfly
Premium
join:2005-03-29
Rialto, CA
1 edit | Uh, Irving Berlin was one of the early members of ASCAP. He also protected his songbook jealously. He was a generous man, but you didn't steal his music and get away with it. How do you suppose Irving would have gotten royalties for performances of "God Bless America" if ASCAP had not collected for him?
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In reality, there is no such thing as a clean human being. | |
Noah Vail
Premium
join:2004-12-10
Lorton, VA
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by rcdailey  :Uh, Irving Berlin was one of the early members of ASCAP. He also protected his songbook jealously. He was a generous man, but you didn't steal his music and get away with it. How do you suppose Irving would have gotten royalties for performances of "God Bless America" if ASCAP had not collected for him? Are you contending that is was Berlin's intention that ASCAP would collect a royalty payment from the GSA (or the Girl Scout herself) every time a Girl Scout sang God Bless America in the presence of another?
I assume ASCAP manifests some sort of punishment for those who are not forthcoming with their royalty payments. Then to be just, those punishments should be applied to Girl Scouts, as often as the law allows.
Furthermore, these Girl Scouts should be closely monitored so that the proper dues can be extracted, every time an ASCAP protected song escapes from their lips.
If ASCAP procedures are honorable, then these things are appropriate.
ASCAP is pronounced Ass-Cap, is it not?
In the war over ownership of people, copyright laws move the token a bit closer toward the Corporate Goal.
NV
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I call it the Crapture. | |
rcdailey
Dragoonfly
Premium
join:2005-03-29
Rialto, CA
3 edits | When it comes to Berlin, he was in it for the money as well as the music. That's not a criticism, by the way. He retained the rights to his songs, avoiding selling to strange corporations. It's obvious that he felt that he knew better what to do with the proceeds.
When it comes to ASCAP and performance royalties, the problem is whether a performance is private or public. For example, you are not supposed to sing modern Christian songs in church without a license. The old traditional songs are okay, but all the new music requires a license (CCLI is an agency that can arrange this for churches, schools, and other organizations).
As another example, have you ever wondered why the employees of some restaurants sing a special birthday song rather than the traditional "Happy Birthday" song that we all know? That's because the writers of that song lived a very long time and required that anyone singing that song in public would have to pay a royalty. You never (or I never) heard that song on the radio or on TV. However, no one ever got dinged for singing it around a dining table at home.
So, is singing around a campfire a public performance? Maybe it is if it is a campfire at an organized GSA event, especially one that is being recorded as a video. If it's just on a leader's own property, maybe not, but don't put it up on YouTube.
So far as I'm concerned, it would be better if copyrights expired sooner and if music corporations could not retain copyrights indefinitely. The way it is now, as I understand it, many more recent compositions (last 100 years or so) will never become public domain. That is a bad thing, and it's all about money rather than about music.
Oh, and I am not a member of ASCAP or BMI. Plus, I'll add that I don't support this business of making people pay fees for performances when they are embedded videos. That's going way over the top.
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In reality, there is no such thing as a clean human being. | |
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