RE: [Harp-L] Calling all Harmonica Vendors



I'm being too much of a crab. I'd like to back off that nasty tone I took yesterday. (I really wanted to, but then I wrote the stuff below, and it's still pretty crabby. At least nobody will be asking me what my real feelings are.) I did not taking all the time it took to write this in order to defend what I wrote yesterday, but rather to help Harplers who are still trying to learn how to make a living playing harmonica understand how serious the issues of rights and getting paid are.

A movie is a damn hard thing to get made, and a documentary is even harder because almost nobody puts a documentary to bed and gets rich. The PFOS filmmakers are going to have to wake up the day after the film is launched and figure out where the next paycheck is coming from. I get that.

Further, when I describe the filmmakers as well-intention I do not use that term in quotes. I respect, like and admire Michael Rubin, and his word goes a long way with me, so I totally believe that the filmmakers are good people with the very best intentions.

Here's why a bad feeling attaches to PFOS for me:
1. The Terms & Conditions of that song contest were just plain awful. As a guy who has worked in publishing in the Brill Building, as a judge in a national song contest, as a composer and a musician I will repeat what I said in the original thread last year: that T&C did not meet the smell test. Demanding all rights in perpetuity to everything that was submitted was just plain ugly, especially when most of the people you are demanding them from haven't the slightest idea of the value of those rights. Smiling and saying in all sincerity that it's a great opportunity didn't make it a great opportunity. But it's true that a lawyer drew the T&C up.
2. However, you don't pay a lawyer to be a decent human being, you pay him to put you in the best possible position. Putting the filmmakers in the best possible position against a bunch of penurious harmonica players was a very easy billable hour for that lawyer. Still, I understand why, if you shell out for a lawyer, you'd actually take his advice.
3. So, when Richard Hunter, Emile D'Amico and Ken Deifik, among others, cried foul over that T&C, and tried to warn people about what they were giving up, I believe that the filmmakers realized that their T&C might've gone too far. Unfortunately, according to a very defensive and non-apologetic post from the filmmakers, all they seemed to have done is withdraw the T&C from the website. No mention anywhere in the Harp-l archive that they changed it, however, as far as I can find. (I'd be delighted to be pointed to the post that would correct my impression.)


The filmmakers were about to make me feel pretty good about them - like they were completely well-intentioned, filmmakers who had no idea of what a con game the music business can become, who had no idea that their lawyer-created T&C was not actually the kind of T&C that a legitimate music contest would ever require its applicants to agree with.

4. But finally, here's where the filmmakers lost me, and had me smelling fish where maybe there wasn't any: I just searched through the archives on the terms "PFOS" and "pocket full of soul" and the only communications I have ever seen from them on this subject was defensive, and a little pissed off that anyone would impugn their motives. No apology, no rewrite that I can find, not even an apology for getting caught or for 'having offended some people.'

If they wanted free work because they were well-intentioned but broke, then they shouldn't have been asking for all rights for that free work, and when they realized that that was what they were asking for they should have apologized for the inadvertent insult and adopted a T&C where they took the publishing and nothing more for the winning piece (a totally legitimate condition) and left the non-winners alone. Maybe they did adopt such a T&C, I just can't find any evidence of that in the archive.

Maybe there was a sincere and heart-felt apology from the filmmakers. But like I say, as far as my archive search went, I couldn't even find an apology for getting caught.

Pitting musicians up against each other to see who'll do the job for free was an insult. It's hardly better than going down to a soup kitchen and seeing if anyone'll work for two bucks an hour. Why? Because the filmmakers still had to pay for all kinds of stuff, maxing out their credit cards and touching up friends and family.

That means that some suppliers got paid.

You can't play Mobil off Shell and expect to get free gas, but you can tell harmonica players (who also like to get paid) "Unless you want to work for free and give up all rights, go home because the guy behind you will. We're very well-intentioned, but we only pay people we can't play off against each other." I'm willing to believe that they didn't actually think of it as playing people off against each other, and in fact they're probably insulted right now because I say that's what they did, but in the end they got free work by playing people off against each other, whether they can admit it to themselves or not.

And yet I do free work from time to time. I try to help out friends and people who are doing things that aren't half as cool as PFOS. But those people don't also demand all rights for everything in perpetuity for a buck.

The fact that the filmmakers worked their butts off in a labor of love doesn't absolve them from stepping up and making things right. How about just acting a little contrite for getting themselves into a position where they had to pay Exxon/Mobil and the company that made the camera and the editing software, and the restaurant and the DVD duplicator, but not being able to pay people for music to help promote your labor of love, and for adding ugly demands into the bargain. (For that matter, why not ask friends and family for a hundred bucks to pay the contest winner, in exchange for a piece of the publishing?)

So there's where I got pissed off about "inviting" people to play for free at an event intended to promote the movie.

Free promotion is a very big deal. We all need it. I'd have been delighted to submit something to the contest if the filmmakers humbly asked for help rather than demand all rights forever in perpetuity for a buck.

And if the filmmakers feel the impulse to reply that most Harplers were not insulted, my reply is that anyone on Harp-l who doesn't feel insulted by their 'offer' has not been screwed enough yet.

Of course I intend to see the movie. It's not a movie about the filmmakers - it's about a subject I love. I'm excited to see great footage of musicians I admire. If it's a good movie, and I have a sense it may well be, I intend to rave here and elsewhere. If it's not so good I won't say a thing. It's too damned hard to make a movie.

But I absolutely take personally the filmmakers' lack of contrition for giving us the choice to work for free or take a hike. It's the lack of contrition and the lack of any evidence that they made things right and fixed the T&C that bothers me and makes me feel that their continued project to get harmonica players to work for free is not quite as cool as if they had.

To the film makers: I sincerely wish you the best of luck with your movie. But try and be a little more humble when you are asking for free work.

Ken



At 11:57 AM 12/8/2008, you wrote:
Ken:

I am sorry to hear that our project makes your blood run cold. We have been working very hard to make this project a reality. Do we wish we could pay players? Sure. But with little or no sponsors, no production or film company supporting us, and no major source of revenue to support this film, it is difficult, however, this has not stopped us from working diligently to make an incredible film. As you may or may not know, we have spent a significant amount of our own money and have sought investors which are basically friends and family so that we could try to make a great film about a very important subject. We are not Hollywood. No matter how much money, time, or energy that we put into this project, we still occasionally receive negative comments from people like you. This is what makes my blood boil. You have not seen the project and from your comments you probably never will, but it is special and the players and performers that have seen it appreciate our hard work. Hopefully the players that have gratefully participated in the film will receive a benefit in record sales, tour revenues, etc. It is certainly our sincere hope that they do.

Regarding the event in Houston, we are not shelling out any money because we are out of funds. Hence the reason to partner with the City of Houston and the House of Blues. We hope we are able to make this event a positive reality, if it occurs at all.

Thank you.

Todd

> Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 11:00:20 -0800
> To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> From: kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Calling all Harmonica Vendors
>
> I've been hearing some promotion of the movie in LA, and here's some promo
> going on in Houston.
>
> Does anyone else find it remarkable that the filmmakers are able to shell
> out for promotion (and prints of the film and tools to make the film) but
> somehow they couldn't pay the harp players?
>
> I'm normally a very cheery guy, but this project makes my blood run cold.
>
> > > Pocket Full of Soul: The Harmonica Documentary is working with the City of
> > > Houston, its amazing downtown park Discovery Green www.discoverygreen.com,
> > > and the House of Blues in Houston to create a harmonica blues film/music
> > > festival in Spring 2009.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
> Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l



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