Karaoke Forums

Ummmmm... Why? What has the cost of membership got to do with anything?


As far as I am concerned, ASCAP is a membership organisation, which you seem to vehemently dispute for some reason. Lord knows why! Have you even seen the list of benefits that ASCAP offers it's members? Far more than just representing them in regards to royalties. For your convenience, I provide a link to their benefits page:

http://www.ascap.com/benefits/

I wonder how many non-members of ASCAP are able to enjoy the benefits they provide. My guess would be 0, zip, none! You have to be a member of this organisation to be able to partake in the services and benfits it provides... hmmmm, sounds like a membership organisation to me!



Why should I bother to look up something you had posted a month before which, incidentally, seems to support the notion that these organisations are, in fact, membership organisations, and especially as you do not seem to care about reading previous posts regarding typing in upper case! Take the following quote from your provided information:

"First thing you must realize is that SESAC is usually very hard to get into, unless you are already having great success in the music business...it's almost like you have to be invited to join."

My word! That sounds like quite the membership organisation to me. You actually have to be invited to become a member of it! Not unlike the yacht club I am a member of... to become a member, one has to be nominated, the nomination seconded and then approved by the committee.

And another excerpt from your provided information:

"This leaves, ASCAP vs BMI. Now, this is my personal opinion, not because of my affiliation, but I "believe" ASCAP to be the better choice. My reason for this is that ASCAP was founded and is still run by the composers, authors and publishers which makes up it's membership."

Again, this fits a pretty good description of a membership organisation.




Nope! But I do understand that you don't have any idea of the benefits that ASCAP offers it's "members". Hopefully you will have better insight after reading the page I linked to above. I also understand that whenever you have a difference in opinion from someone else, then you consider that only you are correct and the rest is BS.

Why should any of us be "Members" of ascap/bmi unless we are writing our own origional songs.

As KJs we pay into ASCAP/BMI directly or indirectly (through the venue). Paying either organization for performances does not make you a member.

Fred,

Don't be mislead by Murray C. who is hung up on the term "member"

Those who contract for the services of any of those royalty agencies are referred to as "members" just as those who join a gym are called "members". The big difference between being a member of ASCAP OR BMI is THEY PAY YOU while you have to pay the gym.

And if you don't pay the gym on time you might no longer be considered a "member in good standing" and if you stop paying altogether they probably will drop you from their "membership" rolls and sue you if you signed a contract!

Again, back to my original post, my point was AND STILL IS THAT the "member in good standing" reference made by the "THIEF" was a CUNNARD that just continues to go over the head of Murray C.

If Murray C could show that anyone other than a publisher, author or composer is a "member" and NOT A CLIENT of any of those groups that would be even more revealing!

And if Murray C can show provide me a reason, other than plagiarism, that a member of ASCAP would not be considered a member in good standing I would welcome the information because that goes to the essence of my original post regardless of how confused someone might be over the term member! And that, again, assumes that the THIEF is either a publisher, composer or author/lyricist!

Still don't get it?

Feeble attempts to belittle others who call you out on your errors are but one of your traits. Weaknesses in comprehension and spelling are obviously two more!

This quote is another fine example of your stating false facts. I have been fully aware that the "member in good standing" statement is a canard since I first read this thread and long before you posted your reply in so rudely in upper case.

I could not agree with you more Murray!

Do you mean canard? cant find a meaning for Cunnard anywhere.

The suggestion that the person in question is apparently claiming to be a music PUBLISHER, otherwise they could not be simultaniously a member of both ASCAP AND BMI.
ONLY PUBLISHERS CAN BE IN BOTH GROUPS.

The purpose of the groups is to collect money and pay SONGWRITERS for public performance of their music. That includes cover versions of those songs being performed by ANY artists who did not write the songs themselves. THe publishers are allowed to join the groups because they often aquire the rights or act as agents for the SONGWRITERS.

Now I find it very doubtful that this person has rights to the thousands of songs from the origional songwriters or is acting as thier agent. I also find it pretty useless to have thousands of songs that this guy may have written himself as karaoke versions.

So all that is going on here is that a person is claiming to have not violated rules of an organization that does not govern his "crimes". Music publishers and artists are the force against the song copying piracy, not ASCAP/BMI.

I stand by my statement that he has no need to be a member either group as a PUBLISHER for his activities regarding karaoke. If he is a artist in his own right and he made some karaoke versions of his own songs, then he could not be a member of both, he would have to choose one or the other.

Sure he could be a "member" of either group, but he would just be paying registration fee, and then be ignored by them because I doubt he has any songs getting any radio play which is how the reimbursment is calculated.

But with the origional post the he is talking about "DUES" and ASCAP/BMI do charge a fee to join (registration fee) for musicians/publishers. That is the DUES the origional post talked about. The fees that ASCAP/BMI charge venues are not membership dues.

On a secondary note, 150,000 songs in a 500 gb hard drive is not high enough sampling rates to be high quality. The songs sold by tricerasoft are about 6-7 mb on average ZIPPED. That means 150,000 songs should take up nearly 900 GB if sampled at a reasonable bitrate even if they are zipped, unzipped it would be far more.

BigJer @ Fri Mar 05, 2010 11:42 pm wrote:

Maybe we should make him a generous offer and buy just his discs, he can keep his hard drive.

Actually had that happen! Found an Ebay auction for Sound Choice Foundation and Bricks. It was for the discs. I won and received the original SC discs.

However, the guy emailed me to tell me he was taking time to copy the discs before he sent them. Then I find auctions on Ebay for the exact same package on a hard drive. I emailed him and ridiculed him for what he was doing and he pulled the ad. Then I find it on Craigslist.

Gotta love it!

Brought up visions of karaoke on the QEII


Exactly! And don't you just love the part about his lawyer's advice? D'ya think any copyright lawyer would know that?




I think you are referring to this in the original post:


I don't think he was referring to "dues" as being the registration fee. I took it as being his misguided inference that if you, the karaoke host, pay the fees for public performance, then you are covered for any legalities.



.. you should've told him you were a legal rep from SC!

Webster defines Cunnard as, noun; one who is afraid to perform oral sex on a female... ........hybrid word combining coward and yum yum(oh gee, they edited my word.....good edit).....

Murray, that would be Cunard as in Smauel Cunard, the Halifax, Nova Scotia born who founded the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in 1840, which evolved into the present day Cunard Line. Thus endeth the history lesson.

_________________
You can be strange but not a stranger

I never knew Samuel Cunard was Canadian! Thanks for the info. And yes, I was jesting on the use of the word (or non-word) CUNNARD in relation to discussion on ASCAP and BMI. When I saw that, I had a chuckle at the possibility of the discussion turning towards licensing live performances on Cunard's cruise ships!

Generally speaking, my spelling is impeccable. And while I can find deficiencies with the spelling of many other contributors, I find it interesting exactly who the people are that attack others for their spelling.

95% of the posters spell "definite" incorrectly as "definate". Only a small mind with a limited grasp and flimsy logic resorts to personal attacks. Which is exactly how you began your response to me - a personal attack suggesting that I lacked (CRITICAL) information about membership in ASCAP.

Well, I still stand by my post as it directly referred to the pirates "offer". He implied that the purchasers of his property could retain and maintain legal ownership to what he was selling by becoming members in good standing of ASCAP & BMI.

Now, play all the games you want with semantics and my conclusion and declaration that those organizations are not (the type of) membership organizations (that the general public can casually join). And if you don't understand that, it says more about you than about me!

I fully understand what those organizations do, who they represent, and what their "membership" consist of. Perhaps you are the one who is gaining from the additional input of others who have been providing specifics about the nature of being a "member" in those organizations?

Is BLOWHARD a bad word?

_________________
Dave's not here.

Definately not!

well of course it's not a bad word, but the action itself, when taken litterally, can result in some very inflated testicles........

HHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE'S JOHNNY! He's back...loud and proud. You crack me up.

loud, but not really proud......just can't help myself.....kinda like internet tourette syndromette......

ps....actually, some of my best posts never stay up very long on here..... ....I try to use words and phrases that only a mind in the gutter could figure out(at least most of the time), but they still kill many of my posts......all I can do is .....keep trying....

Gotta love a good dose of tenacity.

hmmmmm, not familiar with that word, now I know it can't mean either thought in my head, because I know I only have two arms, and I've made an a$$ out of myself......more than 10 times.....