Grammy In My District

Article in Ventura Breeze 11/9/16 – 11/22/16 issue
Written by Pam Baumgardner

Robert Fisher, Congresswoman Julia Brownley and John Baffa.

Robert Fisher, Congresswoman Julia Brownley and John Baffa.

One of the highest musical accomplishments one can earn is the Grammy awarded by the Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. And though most people think of the Grammys as just an annual televised event featuring their favorite artists, the organization actually goes above and beyond with advocacy and helping to effect public policy. One of those advocacy groups is “Grammys in my District” launched in 2014 and is now held throughout the United States in order to bring music creators to the local offices of elected officials in their own districts. The purpose is to let lawmakers know that music creators are an important part of their voting constituency and to discuss the important issues in their industry.

On October 26, music professionals from our area including Bevan Manson, Toni Jannotta and Grammy winner John Baffa (TV Tray Recording Studio) met with Congresswoman Julia Brownley who represents the 26th District of California at her office in Thousand Oaks.

The Fair Pay Fair Play Act (H.R. 1733) – The Fair Play Fair Pay Act is bipartisan legislation that will reform music licensing for sound recordings. The bill modernizes music licensing in a logical, comprehensive way. It will ensure that all music services play by the same rules, while protecting small broadcasters, so that music creators receive fair market value for their work.

The Allocation for Music Producers Act (H.R. 1457) – Music producers are an integral part of the creative process for a sound recording, yet they have never been mentioned in copyright law. The AMP Act would allow producers and engineers to get direct payment of their digital royalties through SoundExchange. This bipartisan bill has no opposition and is non-controversial.

And Reforming the Consent Decrees for Songwriters & the Songwriter Equity Act (H.R. 1283) —Songwriters are subjected to decades-old consent decrees that restrict how ASCAP and BMI, the two largest performing rights organizations, license their work. This summer, the DOJ issued a harmful decision making the consent decrees even worse. Congress should ensure that songwriters ultimately get the reforms they need to receive fair compensation. H.R. 1283 is step toward reform that modernizes the rate setting process for songwriters.

The meeting went extremely well. Baffa felt that the Congresswoman was very receptive to the concerns brought to the meeting. He said, “I feel like she is already a champion of the arts, but it was good to meet with her and to confirm that.”

As far as the bottom line goes, Baffa explained, “Ultimately, we need to ensure consistency and fair pay for musicians and music creators, especially in this digital age. These laws will better protect us and provide a more modern structure for the business of music.”

Baffa won his Grammy a couple of years ago for “Plectra and Percussion Dances,” by Partch in the Best Classical Compendium category. He said, “It’s an amazing alternative avant-garde classical album, performed on hand-built instruments constructed specifically for this music.”

2 thoughts on “Grammy In My District

  1. Thank you, Pam, for writing this. It is so important that we get paid for our work. Companies make money from pop-up adds online or elsewhere are able to do that because they are using our creations. And so we should be paid fairly. It is a daily frustration for a composer or songwriter, who has spent weeks or sometimes months in creating a new work, to discover yet another streaming service that, surprise, is using his or her work for profit, without any notification or agreement or compensation. I personally experience this a lot. (While some companies do have agreements worked out, they usually pay an absurd minute fraction of a cent per song.) Similarly, producers and engineers, many of whom work extensively on tracks throughout the recording process, need to be paid finally. So many performers contribute mightily of course to the way a song or composition sounds. Thus it is imperative that we address a great wrong in getting the Fair Play Fair Pay Act signed into law. Incredibly, The United States, China, Iran, and North Korea, are the only countries that don’t pay performers when their music is played over AM/FM radio. According to the American Federation of Musicians, our union, and the MusicFirst Coalition, as we refuse to reciprocate, “music creators in the United States are denied performance royalties for their international airplay. That is a loss for performers that is estimated to cost the United States economy $100 million or more a year.” This is the potential difference between making a living as a musician or endlessly struggling against an unfair situation. And lastly, ASCAP and BMI, who actually do pay us fairly, are only so big and can’t monitor the entire new frontier of electronic media. So the SEA Act is needed to create a fair infrastructure for payments to composers and songwriters from new electronic media.

    • Thanks so much for your feedback and further explanation on these important issues Bevan. I wish you nothing but success as you continue to advocate on behalf of artists and technicians within the music industry.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *