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As a President Emeritus of the Songwriters’ Guild and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, I feel obligated to issue my State of the Guild report. And as of Sept. 5, 2006, the only factual and honest statement is that our Guild is the healthiest it’s been in many a year. Many of our senior members will remember the role we played in the passage of the “new” Copyright Act of 1976 when, with the head of the National Music Publishers’ Association, Sal Chiantia at my side, we persuaded Congress that this country was lagging in its efforts to protect the creative works of songwriters and others. The performing rights organizations and publishers had been trying for many years to gain a new copyright law, but when our Guild stepped in we achieved that goal fairly immediately. Why? Because instead of bringing star composers and lyricists to Washington, men and women who were wealthy and whom the Congress felt needed no additional protection, we brought in the little guy and gal from Los Angeles, Nashville and New York. In the House of Representatives we were applauded by the Judiciary Committee for bringing in our “writers - not lawyers and lobbyists.” Yes, Representative Danielson actually said that, back then. And Sal Chiantia said to me, as we victoriously walked down a congressional hall, “Ervin, in years to come no one will remember what you and I achieved here!” |
SGA President Rick Carnes in a rare moment outside the halls of Congress where he is normally meeting with legislators on behalf of songwriters. Here, he's shown in protest against illegal downloading of music which steals millions from songwriters each year and makes earning a living from the craft ever more difficult. |
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Sal is gone now, more’s the pity, and we all miss him, ‘cause he was the smartest publisher I ever met. Ed Murphy was another head of NMPA who recognized the wisdom of treating the SGA as an equal and worked well in tandem with George David Weiss (George, as many of you will remember, was most helpful in working with Sal and me and was the man I later tapped to be our next SGA president). And perhaps there will be other leaders among our partners in publishing who will come to realize, as Sal and I did, that only by working with us side-by-side, in a symbiotic relationship, can we accomplish what we did in 1976.* But, in each new era there are new problems for songwriters. And to face those problems we are fortunate to have an active administration under President Rick Carnes with the help of COO Rundi Ream. Now, most of you do not know that Rick is a frequent flyer -- spending much of his time commuting to Washington, DC, to safeguard songwriters’ interests. You see, the Internet is both a blessing and a curse where songwriters and publishers are concerned. And Rick is really concerned! In
order to devise a system whereby the record companies,
music publishers and songwriters collect (fairly)
for the use and sale of our works on the Web,
the Congress is once again involved. The recording
guys, RIAA, have big hips and tend to push little
guys around. After them, the Rick has fought valiantly and successfully to get us a seat or two in the room where everything is taking place. In particular, he’s fought to allow us a voice in determining what piece of the pie we receive in the future from Web income. And this slice of the pie will be tremendous, because we the whole world meets out there in cyberspace and the whole world loves American music. Meanwhile, clever Rundi watches the store when Rick’s in DC, with the able assistance of Charles Sanders, one of the best legal advisors the Guild has ever had. In
between all those flights to DC, Rick came up
with another great idea. In 1973-74, when I was president,
I introduced the Catalog Administration Plan (CAP).
This enabled SGA songwriters to become
their own music publishers, with only 9% (or less)
of their income received by the SGA! For Well, Rick recently sounded out the Board of Directors of the SGA on his plan to add a crucial element to our CAP program to keep up with changing times in the music industry. It’s a simple idea: hire song pluggers to present CAP songs to film firms for use in movies; record firms for new recordings; and Madison Avenue ad firms for use in commercials. Why didn’t Ervin and George think of that? Or Burton Lane or Edward Eliscu or Sigmund Romberg or any other previous presidents of the Guild? Because Rick figured it was an idea whose time has come. And he thunk it all by himself. And
we all voted yes on Rick’s idea, except
for one director who had recently turned his songs
over to a
major publisher who made lots of promises it will
likely never keep. My skepticism about those promises
stems from a lifetime of sad experience. Oh, they’ll
take your catalog, maybe even give you some
front money, and then put your wonderful songs
under an already existing two or three million songs
they’ve owned for years. If you get a new
recording or commercial or film use it will most
likely In
addition to deciding to hire song pluggers, Rundi
and Charley have asked our marketing group to create
for us a new Web site that will focus on the advantages
of our CAP program over others’ more expensive
options. This site will offer a section where
CAP members’ music will be featured – and, where
approved, be made available for listening via
the Web. This will help aid decision makers who
are charged
with finding those songwriting gems that will
best fit their projects. As you can see, everyone’s
on board with actively promoting our members’ songs
wherever the opportunity is So,
thanks to Rick, this is where we are now. And
as one who knew and respected George David Weiss
enough to appoint him my successor, I’m
telling you that if we lived in the same town,
he’d be right
beside me now, nodding and co-writing this letter. Fraternally,
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