A.S.C.A.P.

The entertainment industry is one often depicting the glamorous or fun side of life, often leaving the business side out of the public’s eye. However in order for a lot of people to get paid for their work they must collect royalties. Royalties are money paid for the use of a writers, or composers works. People purchase the use of their music, usually licensed to them through a music publisher. The money for radio , club, elevator, and all other non-dramatic public performances of their copyrighted works are collected by performance rights organizations. Organizations such as American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

         A.S.C.A.P. is an organization made up of music writers, composers, and publishers. They collect royalties for the composers and writers, and distributes them accordingly. They along with a few other Performance Rights Organizations, have made it easy to collect royalties. Years ago a publisher would have to have connections with every radio station that plays there music. With organizations like A.S.C.A.P., Radio stations along with others pay them for a blackent license fee for the use of songs published by a large number of artist. The data of plays are sent to A.S.C.A.P and A.S.C.A.P will divide the royalties according to equal statistics for the music played.

         Performance Rights organizations allow writers such a s myself to be able to focus on our music instead of collecting money. I am a member of A.S.C.A.P. and have been for the past 6 years. It greatly effects my ability to make money. I highly recommend anyone that is in the music industry should deafeningly have a membership with one of these companies to get their fare share of the pie!.