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October - November - December 1998
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PRESIDENT'S LETTER This is a critical time, when copyright is under unprecedented assault from more places, with more power, than ever before. In the last few months alone, those attacking copyright have included a strange stew of the National Association of Librarians, legislators of various stripes, even some leading newspapers, which have traditionally been champions of copyright. Add to that the ever-growing roster of telephone companies, Internet providers, restaurateurs and broadcasters, and it's clear that creators have a frightening army of adversaries. There's no great philosophical shift behind this unprecedented assault on our rights. It's simple commercialism. Some in Congress see us as an obstacle to the communications industry making a rightful buck. And we creators say to our lawmakers: put policy back into politics. Protect rights that make creative endeavors possible. In the midst of "millenium this" and "digital that," we must not lose sight of that magic moment when real flesh-and-blood digits hit the keyboard -- whether it be IBM or Steinway -- to create a work that's worth listening to. However, there are an ever-growing number of new users of music with the money and technology to bring our work to the public and make a tidy profit doing so. But we need each other. These users need our creative product to fill their channels, and we need their seemingly unlimited distribution to reach the listening audience. As we work together -- and we must work together -- we must avoid any new licensing alternatives that tend to devalue music, to make it a commodity, worth so much per second. I can tell you, on behalf of all creators, that we have never written a commodity. Singers don't sing commodities. Musicians don't play commodities. And music lovers don't listen to commodities. On October 7, Congress passed a truly toxic bill which emasculates copyright protection to benefit a special interest group that spends far less than one percent of its operating expenses on music. On the positive side, Congress has just brought the U.S. in line with the rest of the world on the length of copyright protection, insuring life plus seventy years. And on October 12, Congress also passed legislation supporting the World Intellectual Property Organization (or WIPO) treaty protecting copyright in the digital world. I want to thank all of you sling-shot Davids in a world of high-tech Goliaths who wrote, E-mailed, telephoned or visited Washington on behalf of copyright issues. We could not have achieved the passage of La Cienega and Term Extension or limit the damage of licensing legislation without your strong voices. Always remember that our music is the result of one person or a team of people sitting alone in a room. It is the smallest of businesses, where the staff is five lines on a page, and the bottom line is the note "e."
Marilyn Bergman |
PlayBack
: October - November - December 1998
ASCAP PlayBack
