[Dixielandjazz] Happy Birthday/ royalties and payola

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Great idea Jerry,

And if you pass the hat and take up a nickel from every person in 
earshot you can pay the royalties to the BMI or ASCAP guy in the crowd 
and maybe they will leave some small live music venue alone for a week 
or so. :))

Make sure you send out Press releases about it to all the media so it 
gets real coverage and draws attention to the mess they have created, 
and yes the finger thing is certainly a way to deal with them, however 
I prefer the Italian good luck sing of the entire fist and forearm 
signal. :))

I wonder how much they collect for Aul ang Zine  in Times Square every 
new years eve ??   Hummm.. if I were the songwriter on that one I would 
have a steady royalty check every year heh?   If indeed they ever paid 
me.

Heck for today's aspiring songwriters it costs more money to just get 
your songs played on a radio station than you will ever get in 
royalties for them playing them, Me thinks we have the cart before the 
horse for sure.   And now they want to shut down the internet stations 
that will actually play something other than what the big guns are 
getting paid to play.  Payola, they have finally figured out a way to 
eliminate payola and gotten the dimwitted politicians to approve it 
too.   Now you can buy advertising on the radio to talk about your song 
that you are about to have played, however without buying the 
advertising infomercial you ain't likely to get any airplay.

Now my interpretation on this new twist is a very simple one,  they 
have indeed eliminated Payola by a sleazy Radio promotion guy slipping 
around at night with free leather jackets, cocaine, grass, and cash to 
pay off the Dj.   It has now become above board and sophisticated 
advertising revenue paid to the station instead of the DJ in the form 
of a bribe.   Then they play only what they are getting paid to play 
and stream it out in automated feeds and eliminate the on air Dj in 
many stations as well, and only need program their computer to feed the 
same show to  all 1000 or so of their stations.    Then they buy if 
they do not already own them the publishing companies that hold the 
rights to all the songs on the playlist, hello  now they get to pay 
themselves the royalties back thru ASCAP & BMI.


Ohhh what a sticky wickett, and treacherous web they weave. :))


Cheers,

Tom Wiggins





-----Original Message-----
From: jazzjerry at btinternet.com
To: Tcashwigg at aol.com
Cc: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Sent: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 8:59 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Happy Birthday

   List-Message-Recipient: tcashwigg at aol.com
Being resident in 'The Land of The Free' where
everybody sings:

"Happy Birthday to You,
Happy Birthday To You,
Happy Birthday, Dear ------,
Happy Birthday To You"

to the well known tune

in every restaurant, school, office, pub, club,
street and other gathering at which persons gather to
celebrate someone getting another notch in the tree of
life I am intrigued as to why 'freedom loving'
Americans do not just sing on and stick a finger
(usually done with two over here!) up at Time Warner.

Back in the 1950s. 1960s and 1970s America produced
plenty of great protest songs and singers which
changed the face of the USA as well as stopping the
rather pointless Vietnam war. Where has the spirit
gone? Are you now prepared to lie down and whimper in
the face of the faceless capitalist corportaion or
should you stand up and fight for the right to sing
'Happy Birthday'.

I will be visiting New York in September and maybe
should organise a mass 'Happy Birthday' sing-along in
Times Square.

Cheers,

Jerry,
Norwich,
U.K.

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