hey all,
Being a huge BSG fan, I get concerned when I hear Bear’s BSG music being played on BBC radio, and more recently, on my local tv station.
Is he getting royalties for this?
If it’s being broadcast, then he is. TV and radio stations, broadcasters in general (though I’m not sure how it works on the internet), presenters, performing organizations, etc. pay licensing fees to ASCAP (the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) (there’s a third licensing organization, but, not having to deal with them, I can’t remember their name) who, in turn, collect and distribute royalties for their composer/songwriter members like Bear. So rest easy, Bear’s doing just fine, I’m sure. 
Possibly. Stations pay to a collection society (ASCAP, e.g.) and the collection society keeps some for itself and then distributes the rest to the composer, if he’s big enough. Bear probably is at this point, although the list of artists who aren’t is comically large (The society gets to keep the money if they ‘can’t find’ the artist, so they don’t try too hard.)
Well, artists have to know how to manage their own careers too. Otherwise, yes, sadly, they get taken advantage of too easily. Bear is at a point in his career where he has management and representation with a staff that does that stuff for him (unlike us small time schlubs, who have to do everything ourselves…then again, we get to keep ALL of our royalties and not split them with a publisher or agent. So there).
And in ASCAP’s (or BMI’s, I have to REALLY defend BMI, since I’ve been a member since 1996 and have been VERY happy with their work) defense, the agencies don’t simply keep the money due composers they can’t find. That money tends to be pooled and collected over the years waiting for the composers to make contact, which the agencies do attempt several times a year (well, at least BMI does. I don’t really know how ASCAP works exactly).
Oh, and this is my 4,000th post. Took me long enough!
Do be sure to note CylonMATRIX’s location.
Yeah, I know. Am I coming off as snarky again? I didn’t mean to. :o
I think that arrangement is pretty universal. It’d be a different collection society, is all.
It also takes a little longer to get royalties from one agency in one country to another in another country.
This may also be of interest. (SoundExchange is an RIAA spin-off that is the designated performance rights collection agency in the US. It covers performance rights, as opposed to the composition rights.)
Incidentally, in Singapore it’s COMPASS who deal with music rights and royalties.
Tangent from there: I’m not an acoustic-guitar fan, but iTunes has an nice version of Bear’s “Battlestar Sonatica” piano piece. It’s “Battlestar Sonatica (for Two Guitars)” by Arr Gregg Nestor. Totally worth $.99.
Further tangentry: I stumbled across it while looking for the “Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey” song from the Rankin-Bass special. Nice serendipity.
Do you have a wikipedia link? Because I can’t find one on the Compass page.
Yeah, but all I get is this. I’m not seeing a proper article.
Wikipedia seems to have collapsed into a small group of people. Articles are getting deleted at an alarming rate by groups of three to five. I shouldn’t be surprised, I pretty much gave up on them a couple years ago. I just hoped that those with more fortitude would keep it going. Unfortunately, it seems that those with the stomach for it were the ones trying to trim it down.
Quote:
[i]In addition, the society has established a licensing department to ensure that members are duly compensated, in the form of royalties, for use of their material. By enforcement, the members would also be protected from any unauthorised usage of their materials and be subjected to due rewards. In addition to the control and ownership of music written and published locally, COMPASS has entered into reciprocal agreements with other affiliated societies worldwide, including
• ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers)
• BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.)
• CASH (Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong)
among others. This means that COMPASS administers the works of composers, lyricists and publishers worldwide, representing almost all copyright musical works in the world.
Note that members are required to register all their works with COMPASS, enabling us to have complete information of the works, thus facilitating royalty distribution. It does not constitute ‘copyrighting’ the song[/i]
You know what occurred to me? You may have had something else in mind when you first commented on this. Are you hearing this music being used in a context for which it wasn’t meant? Back in the day when I was growing up in Puerto Rico and television was still largely locally produced (before Telemundo became a huge enterprise) I remember watching a locally produced show that used music from Star Wars as background music, probably without permission. Is this what’s going on?
Yeap, this is what I’m concerned about. Except in my case, “Escape from the Farm” (I think) was being played in the background for a teaser promoting some sports event. We have no way of knowing if Bear is getting paid for this?
It’s probably covered by a blanket license. I’m not sure how it works there, but here they use sampling to guesstimate the number of times a song is used/played. It tends to really screw smaller artists, but if it’s in a promo it has a good chance of ending up in a sample.
tl;dr Bear will probably see some cash for it.
Pike’s probably right on that one. You could always write Bear through his blog and express your concern.
hey i just think its cool that bear’s all the way out there in singapore! but yes i do hope he’s getting $$