Quotes from Creative Innovative Economy Center Conference Call
Quotes taken from:
Creative Innovative Economy Center Conference Call
Richard Conlon on why BMI is involved in the Symposium –
… we are seeing, after thirteen years of new media … some pretty radical changes in the media landscape…. Our experience over the last thirteen years has been one where we have been a part of the game…where we have been working to establish marketplaces for the rights of our songwriters and our publishers in a changing world. The ongoing goal of this program is to keep an open discussion going with the stakeholders and also with some outside parties with the objective of creating real world solutions and taking a critical look at the way things are working and above all assuring that as part of the ecostructure that we work toward creating, that we are able to represent and compensate the creative community and also create viable solutions for the business community.
Robert Merges on the white paper –
I tried to make three points in this paper. I tried to keep it as straightforward as I could…. My first point … yes I think copyright still makes sense… The second point … if we have to have copyright why does it have to be so complex? The simple message there is that songwriting is important enough as a distinct activity that it deserves its own right, … its own copyright. The third point … what about performing rights organizations? Do they still have an important function? The answer is yes…. We need some kind of mechanism that creates a one-stop shop…. Performing rights organizations have traditionally been the way we do that…. performing rights organizations make even more sense then they ever have because they are the experts in facilitating lots and lots of transactions, in bundling together content and in making sure that the people who created it get paid…. they are the experts at offering a one-stop license for lots of buyers of music… they are the experts at taking a big revenue stream from all those buyers combined and distributing it back on a fair and equitable basis to the composer, the people who write the songs.
Dennis Morgan on songwriting as a profession today –
The current structure of rights, we need to protect, as far as I am concerned. BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, they provide so much of our income. To take that away, there would not be any professional songwriters, I promise you. I get up. I write songs…. we do this strictly as a profession…. if these rights are changed or taken away, you are not going to see that particular group of people continue to exist…. The dream is alive and we need this in this country. We lose this, we are going to start losing a lot more.
Robert Merges on songwriter’s leverage –
…without an independent copyright most songwriters would just be working as employees or basically by contract…. If you weaken that or take it away… they would end up being in a very weak position with the record label and past experience shows that they would not come out of that in very good shape.
Dennis Morgan on songwriter’s leverage –
We are always chasing after record companies to be honest, trying to get paid what we are supposed to be paid…. without some protection, without a copyright for the songwriter, we are gone.
Robert Merges on anti-trust concerns about a “one stop shop” for rights –
…the gain to consumers from allowing the different content holders to pool together their content, a more streamlined licensing experience both at the level of the individual PRO and any kind of level beyond that if we ever get there. Those advantages for consumers are just huge… the traditional anti-trust concern is pretty much dwarfed by the advantages to consumers…. I really do not think the anti-trust issues are as salient as they were when those anti-trust consent decrees came down.
