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On Sat, 20 May 1995, Eric K. Meyer wrote:

> On 20 May 95, Authors Guild wrote:
> > The attached is a press release announcing the formation of an ASCAP-like 
Unfortunately, it was unreadable.  Either use a MIME header or give 
unwrapping instructions.  It looked a little like PDF, what was it?

> > service for authors which is designed to facilitate the payment of
> > electronic rights.

I originally proposed this almost 10 years ago, and have been proposing 
it and discussing it with a variety of sources.

> In other words, the big guns who can command royalties for on-line 
> redistribution rights are going to demand it. The problem is, the 
> vast majority of publications, involving the vast majority of 
> freelance writing assignments, will never accept this. And market 
> conditions are such that they don't have to.

Actually, the "Big Guns" are the ones who have the most to lose (but 
by much).  The ASCAP formula is based on actual copies/performances.  
Play logging is a critical factor.  Publishers do pay a premium for "Top 
40" type music, but only a small one.  The big  bonus is that the little 
guys, and the guys who were top 40 50 years ago get paid too.  The
publisher gets a cut, as do the composer and arranger.  This provides 
incentive for the publisher to promote the work created by the composers 
and arrangers.

> What makes this radically different from ASCAP is the distribution 
> system. Most ASCAP royalties are earned when a vast number of 
> individual businesses use products sold via a relatively small number 
> of distributors. On-line publications are not like WKRP in 
> Cincinnati, airing records from Motown, Arista or whomever.

Actually, it is the similarity to the plethora of distributors and 
sources that makes the ASCAP model so noteworthy.  Any artist who is 
willing to pay his "dues" and register his work is likely to start 
receiving ASCAP checks.  The Publisher usually does this for the artist 
but doesn't have to.  For every "Motown" there are dozens of "tapes-r-us"
outfits.  99% of the ASCAP royalties are paid on the honor system.  It is 
usually when a nightclub is playing "Michael Jackson" and logging "George 
M Cohan" that a noteworthy proceeding takes place.

> If an ASCAP-style proposal could not work with videotapes, why would 
> we expect it to work here? The only way is if there is enough clout 
It would work with video-tapes.  In fact, many of your video chains are 
little more than retail versions of ASCAP.  I wouldn't mind going into 
blockbuster and making a "royalty payment" for my internet provider 
royalties.  I would prefer to pay my ISP an additional $20-30/month and 
let him keep track of what I do.  I might even pay my ISP for the access, 
pay NewsShare for content tracking, and pay my "One-shots" with First 
Virtual.

> on the supply side (the writers) to force the demand side (the 
> publications) to accept it. And as anyone who has ever done freelance 
> work will readily concede, such is very far from the case today.
The real trick will be to write enough content worth reading to become an 
interesting writer.  Even if you only write one major story, if it's read 
and quoted regularly for the next 20 years, you could do very nicely even 
at only a penny a page.  Even a magazine doesn't charge much more than a 
penny/page.  The difference is that now I can decide which 500 pages I 
want to read at $5-10/month.

> Moreover, an attempt to impose such a system from the supply side 
> might well be greeted with an anti-trust action that a government, 
> bent on deregulation, might well take up.

In reality, the user, given the choice between having to "remember" 500 
passwords for 500 servers to access 500 pages, and having one point of 
reference and one password will probably prefer to access a single 
authenticator who will handle the details.

Vendors, given the choice of having to set up 3 million individual user 
accounts and having to deal with even a few hundred "distributors" who 
will provide authentication, will probably choose to let these 
distributors be the real "publishers".

	Rex Ballard
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.



From rballard@cnj.digex.net Mon May 29 17:52:31 1995