FW: Congress Attacks Songwriters

[Adrian A. Durlester <durleste...>]

I thought this was important for our list to see.

Shabbat Shalom,


Adrian

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-arts-alert-usa (at) lists(dot)colorado(dot)edu
[mailto:owner-arts-alert-usa (at) lists(dot)colorado(dot)edu] On Behalf Of
FINKELSTEIN RICHARD S
Sent: Friday, March 27, 1998 2:57
To: Arts-alert-usa
Subject: Congress Attacks Songwriters


arts-alert-usa------------------- (Red) --------------------- 3/27/1998

(medium length post). You had all heard the refrain (to use a songwriting
term) from Congressional debate on the NEA: "If the arts are so good
let them prove themselves on the free marketplace". Unfortunately the same
Congressmen who say this when convenient, try whenever possible to LIMIT
ACCESS to the free market for these very artists.

At the behest of certain big-business friends, many in Congress had been
trying for years to end most rights of composers and songwriters to
collect royalty payments from those who use their music to enhance their
business atmosphere.  In the past the attack came in the form of bills
which were then defeated or tabled.

BUT ... this year the attack forces have adopted a more effective 
strategy by attaching their plan, via amendment, to the popular Copyright
Extension Act, now making its way through Congress. 

On March 25, The House passed what Representative Sensenbrenner called his
"Fairness in Music Licensing Act" as an amendment to the Copyright
Extension Act. (Representative Doggett refered to it as "The Music Theft
Act".)

The same Representatives that cry the shrillest for "property rights" no
longer seem to care when those rights extend to artists.

Most disturbing may be the characterization, in the debate, of music
licensing fees as government taxes imposed on small business. This is just
not true at any level at all. In fact songwriters constitute the SMALLEST
of businesses and their royalties are no different in concept than those
collected by others such as Newt Gingrich, when writing books.

A bit of background: Restaurants, hotels, bars, and other such businesses
have been complaining about license fees for years and Congress demanded
that these businesses and the licensing agencies such as ASCAP and BMI
negotiate a new arrangement. In the end the music representatives WERE
able to reach agreement with representatives of the beverage industry but
talks broke down with the restaurants and hotel industries. The feeling of
the songwriters was that the powerful hotel/restaurant lobby became
unwilling to negotiate a compromise when powerful friends in congress were
willing to legislate a FULL victory for their business friends. 

So far in The House the strategy has worked. Next the bill will be moving
to The Senate. Please let your Senators know how you feel on this issue.
Most songwriters earn $10,000 a year or less and the average fees paid by
businesses licensing music amount to $1.58 a day.

Below are some direct quotes from those supporting the songwriters
during the  debate followed by a listing of how Representatives voted on
The Sensenbrenner Amendment. The House first had rejected a less
restrictive Amendment offered by Representatives McCollum and Conyers. You
may access the FULL debate text
at http://spot.colorado.edu/~finkelst/copyrt.htm    after 9:00am Friday.

=====
>From the online Congressional Record from debate on 3/25/1998:

Mr. DOGGETT. It is particularly contradictory and ironic that this rule
will attach and permit attachment to this protection of intellectual
property, what many people have come to call the Music Theft Act, a
measure that is a separate freestanding piece of legislation that has
nothing to do with copyright extension, but is being attached to the most
convenient vehicle to steal the intellectual property of thousands of
small businesspeople who are song writers in this land. This Music Theft
Act is based on a very simple premise: If one cannot get someone else's
property for free, then pass a law to allow them to steal it from them. .
. .

Let us be real clear about what we are discussing. The songwriter's
property is just that; it is property every bit as real as a trade name,
every bit as real as the script for a movie or for a new book, every bit
as real as a new phone system or a copying machine. Music is the property
of the songwriter who created it. And when music helps attract people to a
restaurant, and that is what this is all about is the desire of the
National Restaurant Association to take someone else's property for free,
they may not offer any free lunch around America but they are willing to
take for free the property of someone else to help them promote their
profits in the restaurants.

Mr. SCARBOROUGH from Florida. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Sensenbrenner) talked about how the [alternative] amendment would abuse
small businesses. He talked about fairness in music licensing. He talked
about `a windfall.' He talked about `commercial exploitation.' Now, we
talk about double-speak; who is using the property rights of whom to sell
beer, to sell food, to sell products in the taverns that he spoke about in
Anytown, USA? My restaurant owners in northwest Florida certainly
understand the importance of music in setting a mood in a tavern, in
setting a mood in a restaurant. They also understand what would happen if
they turned the music off. Mr. Chairman, that is the choice they all have
if they do not want to use a product.


Mr. DOGGETT.  It reminds me of another one of our Austin song writers,. To
call this the Fairness in Musical Licensing Act is to remind me of that
line from [the late Stevie Ray Vaughn's] song called the Garden of White
Lies, `They are pulling wool over our eyes,' because that is what this is
all about. It is about pulling wool over our eyes, as we consider a good
bill, to tack on a very bad bill that could not pass on its own because it
basically is contrary to a long series of American court decisions and
American recognition that just because one cannot touch property, a trade
name, a musical work does not mean it is not very real property that
deserves to be protected by our Congress. And those who would steal this
property know that they cannot get away with it under our existing law, so
they want it legalized in the amendment that is being offered today. . . .

The small compensation that current law requires of those that use that
music to pay is modest, indeed, compared to the benefit they derive. It
has been estimated that it costs about $1.58 a day to get the benefits of
all of those members of the American Society of Composers.
I have heard from literally hundreds of musicians in this country, many of
them, of course, from Texas, who have urged the defeat of this Musical
Theft Act, and who recognized that it represents a deprivation of private
property rights.

It is so ironic that some of the people who have spoken out in favor of
private property rights on this floor would now authorize the taking of
private rights from the musicians that create so much of what adds to the
quality of our life, and obviously, flows to the benefit of people,
regardless of the party label that they wear when they come on this floor.

As with any debate, there is room for some middle ground. Indeed, there
have been extensive negotiations over this issue, trying to reach a
reasonable balance. A reasonable balance is not to give the authority to
steal the property rights of our musicians. . . .

On this proposal, actually there was agreement reached with the National
Licensed Beverage Association, but the National Restaurant Association
will not have any of it. Why pay something when you can change the law and
get it for nothing, seems to be their approach. So they have been
unwilling to join those reasonable organizations that would respect
private property rights and recognize they ought to have to pay something
for them, because they want it all their way.

Mr. McCOLLUM. 
Many, many different times, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Sensenbrenner) correctly pointed out, these songs are played, reproduced
at different levels, and a little bit here or a little bit there, penny
here or penny there, is paid into a royalty house that distributes money
to these folks that only nets them out, after all is said and done, for
everything they write in a given year about $10,000 overall in the whole
Nation.

And the restaurants are a big part of that. And if we take away, as the
Sensenbrenner amendment does, virtually all restaurants in the United
States paying these fees and lots of other businesses too, we have taken
away a big hunk of that $10,000 that the average song writer gets in the
United States from his or her work product each year.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Chairman, much has been made about the ability of the
performing rights societies, principally ASCAP and BMI, to drive a hard
bargain. They have been described as monopolies. . . . These organizations
are not monopolies. They are trade associations, collective bargaining
units, if you will, which enable authors and composers to negotiate
contractual terms that are fair and are equitable. It is absurd to suggest
that the thousands of songwriters who belong to these trade associations
could ever negotiate a contract on their own.

I understand why the restaurant association would want to focus on the
market power of ASCAP and BMI, but I think it is important to remember
what this issue is really about. It is about the people that are part of
these trade associations, the songwriters who create American music. They
are mostly people whose songs we all know by heart but whose names none of
us, or most of us, would not even recognize. As Mac Davis testified at our
hearing, the people who write the songs are the low men on the totem pole,
the tiny names in fine print and parentheses under that star's name on the
label, the last guys to get credit and the last guys to get paid. They are
the ones who create the music that fuels an industry that pours millions
of dollars into our economy and generates millions upon millions of
dollars in taxes. Yet the songwriters get the smallest piece of the pie,
pennies, if you will.

. . . George David Weiss, who is the current President of the Songwriters
Guild and one of America's truly great songwriters, commissioned a study
that established that 10 percent of his colleagues are able to earn a
living writing songs. He quoted a study that was done in 1980 and I am
quoting now. Song writing is an occupation which has a high degree of
risk, a high degree of failure, a low chance of success and in general
miserly rewards. Like all true artists, they do what they do because they
love it. When it comes to being compensated for their labors, they are
willing to accept the verdict of the marketplace. But what they cannot
accept is having their work stolen from them, and that is what the
Sensenbrenner amendment would do.

Mr. CLEMENT. The Sensenbrenner amendment would be devastating to our
Nation's song writers. Rather than deny their right to make a living,
Congress should recognize the importance and significance of these gifted
and talented individuals. As a Representative from Nashville, Tennessee,
or as I might say it, Music City, USA, I am deeply concerned about this
amendment's effort to compromise the intellectual property rights of our
song writers and assault their ability to make a living. 

Mr. Chairman, this amendment devalues the achievements and diligent
efforts of our song writers and musicians. The property rights of any
individual should not be considered secondary to the rights of others. For
Congress to single out song writers would send a signal to both the
American creative community and to the world at large that intellectual
property no longer holds any value in the United States.

Mr. GORDON. It really is somewhat amazing that the gentleman from
Wisconsin, who is a strong property rights advocate, it is really ironic,
he would never say that these same bars and restaurants should not have to
pay the supplier for the chairs and tables, for the paint on the walls,
for the chandeliers, or for anything else that helps them make the
atmosphere for that particular restaurant or bar. However, for some reason
they should not have to pay $1.50 a day for the music, knowing that if
this $1.50 is not worthwhile, if the music does not enhance their
establishment, they can turn it off. Nobody is telling them they have to
play it. Only that they need to pay for it if they use it, like the tables
and chairs.

Mr. NADLER.  Mr. Chairman, I love restaurant owners. I have plenty of them
in my district. But they are not entitled to the free use of other
people's property. Period.

RECORDED VOTE on the SENSENBRENNER amendment. ayes 297, noes 112, not
voting 22, 

AYES (voting against the songwriters) --297:

Aderholt  Andrews  Archer  Armey  Bachus  Baesler  Baker  Baldacci
Ballenger  Barcia  Barr  Barrett (NE)  Barrett (WI)  Bartlett  Barton
Bass  Bateman  Bentsen  Bereuter  Berry  Bilbray  Bilirakis  Bishop
Blagojevich  Bliley  Blumenauer  Blunt  Boehlert  Boehner  Bonilla  Borski
Boswell  Boucher  Boyd  Brady  Bryant  Bunning  Burr  Burton  Buyer
Callahan  Calvert  Camp  Campbell  Canady  Carson  Castle  Chabot
Chambliss  Chenoweth  Christensen  Clayton  Clyburn  Coburn  Collins
Combest  Condit  Cook  Cooksey  Costello  Cox  Coyne  Cramer  Crane  Crapo
Cubin  Cunningham  Danner  Davis (FL)  Davis (VA)  Deal  DeLay
Diaz-Balart  Dickey  Dicks  Doolittle  Doyle  Duncan  Dunn  Edwards
Ehlers  Ehrlich  Emerson  English  Ensign  Etheridge  Evans  Everett
Ewing  Farr  Fawell  Foley  Fossella  Fowler  Fox  Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen  Frost  Gallegly  Ganske  Gekas  Gibbons  Gilchrest  Gillmor
Goode  Goodlatte  Goodling  Goss  Graham  Granger  Green  Greenwood
Gutknecht  Hall (OH)  Hall (TX)  Hamilton  Hansen  Hastert  Hastings (WA)
Hayworth  Hefley  Hefner  Herger  Hill  Hilleary  Hinojosa  Hobson
Hoekstra  Holden  Hooley  Horn  Hostettler  Hulshof  Hunter  Hutchinson
Inglis  Istook  Jenkins  John  Johnson (CT)  Johnson (WI)  Johnson, Sam
Jones  Kanjorski  Kaptur  Kasich  Kim  Kind (WI)  King (NY)  Kingston
Klink  Klug  Knollenberg  Kolbe  Kucinich  Largent  Latham  LaTourette
Lazio  Leach  Lewis (CA)  Lewis (KY)  Linder  Lipinski  Livingston
LoBiondo  Lucas  Maloney (CT)  Manzullo  Mascara  McCrery  McDade  McHale
McHugh  McInnis  McIntosh  McIntyre  McKeon  McNulty  Metcalf  Mica
Miller (FL)  Minge  Mollohan  Moran (KS)  Moran (VA)  Murtha  Myrick  Neal
Nethercutt  Neumann  Ney  Northup  Norwood  Nussle  Obey  Oxley  Packard
Pallone  Pappas  Parker  Pascrell  Pastor  Paxon  Peterson (MN)  Peterson
(PA)  Petri  Pickering  Pickett  Pitts  Pomeroy  Porter  Portman  Poshard
Price (NC)  Pryce (OH)  Quinn  Rahall  Ramstad  Redmond  Regula  Reyes
Riley  Rodriguez  Roemer  Rogers  Rohrabacher  Ros-Lehtinen  Roukema  Rush
Ryun  Salmon  Sandlin  Sanford  Sawyer  Saxton  Schaefer, Dan  Schaffer,
Bob  Scott  Sensenbrenner  Sessions  Shadegg  Shaw  Shimkus  Shuster
Sisisky  Skeen  Skelton  Smith (MI)  Smith (NJ)  Smith (OR)  Smith (TX)
Smith, Adam  Smith, Linda  Snowbarger  Snyder  Solomon  Souder  Spence
Spratt  Stabenow  Stearns  Stenholm  Strickland  Stump  Sununu  Talent
Tauzin  Taylor (MS)  Taylor (NC)  Thomas  Thompson  Thornberry  Thune
Thurman  Tiahrt  Torres  Traficant  Turner  Upton  Visclosky  Walsh  Wamp
Watkins  Watts (OK)  Weldon (FL)  Weldon (PA)  Weller  Weygand  White
Whitfield  Wicker  Wise  Wolf  Wynn  Young (AK)  Young (FL)
===========

NOES (voting WITH the songwriters) --112
(Send thank you notes! POSITIVE communication is usually more noticed than
the negative!)

Abercrombie  Ackerman  Allen  Becerra  Berman  Bonior  Brown (CA) Brown
(OH)  Capps  Clay  Clement  Coble  Cummings  Davis (IL)  DeFazio  DeGette
Delahunt  DeLauro  Deutsch  Dingell  Dixon  Doggett  Dooley  Dreier  Engel
Eshoo  Fattah  Fazio  Filner  Forbes  Frank  (MA)  Furse  Gejdenson
Gephardt  Gilman  Gordon  Gutierrez  Hastings (FL)  Hilliard  Hinchey
Hoyer  Hyde  Jackson (IL)  Kelly  Kennedy (MA)  Kennedy (RI)  Kennelly
Kildee  Kilpatrick  LaFalce  LaHood  Lampson  Lantos  Levin  Lewis (GA)
Lofgren  Lowey  Luther  Maloney (NY)  Manton  Markey   Martinez  Matsui
McCarthy (MO)  McCarthy (NY)  McCollum  McGovern  McKinney  Meehan  Meek
(FL)  Meeks (NY)  Menendez  Miller (CA)  Mink  Moakley  Morella  Nadler
Oberstar  Olver  Ortiz  Owens  Paul  Pease  Pelosi  Pombo  Radanovich
Rivers  Rogan  Roybal-Allard  Sabo  Sanchez  Sanders  Scarborough  Schumer
Serrano  Shays  Sherman  Skaggs  Slaughter  Stokes  Stupak  Tanner
Tauscher  Tierney  Towns  Velazquez  Vento  Watt  (NC)  Waxman  Wexler
Woolsey  Yates

NOT VOTING--22

Brown (FL)  Cannon  Cardin  Conyers  Ford  Gonzalez  Harman  Houghton
Jackson-Lee (TX)  Jefferson  Johnson, E. B.  Kleczka  McDermott
Millender-McDonald  Payne  Rangel  Riggs  Rothman  Royce  Schiff  Stark
Waters