Nov 06 2007
Donate To Open Mic Scout!
I know we just got finished with the OPB fundraising drive, so I will make this short and sweet:
- Do you enjoy listening to Open Mic Scout?
- Do you love getting quality recordings of your own performances for free?
- Does it make you giddy when you get to hear that great song for the second time?
If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then please donate to the Open Mic Scout podcast! Anything helps, from $1 to $10 to $100. If everyone chips in a little, it will help a lot!
This show is anything but free to produce. In order to keep this podcast legit and still play coversongs, I have to raise somewhere around $750. Here’s why (from http://www.podcastalley.com/forum/showthread.php?t=120612 via www.coverville.com):“First off, ASCAP. The woman I work with there is named Julie Peng, and she’s the Senior Account Executive for the New Media & Technology devision. I spent about an hour with her on the phone (during a drive from Pleasanton, CA to San Francisco) explaining the whole background of podcasting. I think she gets it. Basically, as long as you’re not making more than $12,000 a year on podcasting, you’ll be paying the minimum annual cost of $288 (2004’s price was $264; it’s gone up a bit). It’s not a prorated amount. If you sign a license agreement in November, you’ll pay your $288, and when January 1st rolls around, you’ll pay again. However, if you’ve been playing licensed music in your podcast for a while, you may want to pay that amount to keep your 2004 podcasts legal (unless you take them offline in 2005)Julie was tremendously helpful. She got all my information dueing the call, and filled out the contract for me, which she then mailed to me for me to sign and return with a check.ASCAP’s license agreement can be viewed online at the folling link:http://www.ascap.com/weblicense/BMI is pretty much the same. I worked with Christine Iglesias, who is the Director of Internet Licensing. Their minimum annual rate is $274 for 2004, and the criteria are pretty much the same. BMI’s license can be found here:http://www.bmi.com/licensing/webcaster/index.aspIn both cases, you must document everything you play (Artist, Song Title and Album). These are done quarterly, and I haven’t filled out Q4 2004 yet, but in preparation, I’ve been keeping track of all the music I’ve played. (I’m using a FileMaker Pro database, but you can use Excel, Note Pad, whatever.) ”
So its either pay up, stay under the radar (read as “don’t become popular…”), or stop playing cover songs on the show. Now, anyone who goes to Open Mics knows that cover songs are the bread and butter of most shows (though the my favorite performances are usually original), so cutting them out would significantly shorten the show.
That taken into consideration, its also important to note that I spend hours of my life mixing and producing each show. I spend at least 6 hours producing each show and often upwards of 16 hours. I don’t get paid for running the live sound at the venues and I don’t get paid for mixing. These days, my gear is not cheap and my gas is definitely not cheap.
And yes, the only reason I can afford to do this is because I am, in fact, living in my parents basement (thank you Mom and Dad!) Add in on top of that that it appears all the artists in Portland are too poor to afford my $10 an hour personal recording rates and it puts me in a bit of a predicament.
Sponsorships, artist endorsements (read “I’ll play your single and give out your website on the podcast in exchange for money), and ads are hopeful ways to pay for the podcast in the future, but thats in the long term (6 months to 2 years depending on how fast the listener base grows.)
So Donate to Open Mic Scout and keep this dream alive!
