Tag Archives: ASCAP

Shorties

Who Likes American Music & the State of Radio in America

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The Republic of Ghana is located in western Africa, almost at the very bottom of where the continent juts into the Atlantic. It has a population of 32-million people (here’s a gratuitous fun fact: Tokyo has a population of 37-million people, which just goes to show that China isn’t number-one across the board demographically). The official language in Ghana is English.

So why is this relevant to anything you might otherwise find on GloNo?

It’s this:

Morning Consult did a survey of the popularity of U.S. cultural products around the world. The categories include Movies & TV, U.S.-made Goods; Food and Beverages; and, yes, Music.

And it turns out that in Ghana, U.S. Music is rated as “Excellent or Good” by 78% of the people surveyed.

Actually, when it comes to liking American music Ghana is second internationally to South Africa by a single percentage point. However, 13% of those in Ghana rate U.S. music as “Fair” and that number is 12% in South Africa, so it could be a wash.

What’s interesting is that in places where it might be thought that American music would be popular due to cultural similarities, that is not at all the case.

In terms of rating it “Excellent or Good”:

  • Canada: 67%
  • Australia: 61%
  • U.K.: 46%

Clearly, a common language does not make for common interest.

Continue reading Who Likes American Music & the State of Radio in America →

Shorties

Techdirt vs. ASCAP (Round 2)

Piracy is not theft

Six months ago, we linked to a Techdirt article wherein Blaise Alleyne challenged the premises of ASCAP’s “Bill of Rights” for Songwriters. One of our regular commenters immediately rebutted Alleyne’s arguments (“That post is BS and uses disingenuous comparisons to make untenable points.”). It took him a while, but Alleyne finally responded:

The problem with the copyright crutch is that digital audio files are an infinite good. The price naturally tends toward zero because the supply is infinite. Musicians and music fans alike would be much better off leveraging the infinite value of digital music (i.e. spreading thread music as far and wide as possible), and capitalize on the scarcities associated with their music (e.g. physical goods like CDs, concert tickets, access to the musician, the ability to create new music, etc.).

ASCAP is stuck trying to enforce artificial scarcity on music through draconian copyright measures. Good luck with that. Musicians would be better off not to get sucked into the sinking ship, but to leverage the economics of abundance to their advantage.

I’m linking it to here so it doesn’t just get lost in the itty bitty comments section…