{"id":6163,"date":"2015-10-28T14:27:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T19:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/?p=6163"},"modified":"2015-10-28T15:50:58","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T20:50:58","slug":"my-0-08-from-ascap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/my-0-08-from-ascap\/","title":{"rendered":"My $0.08 From ASCAP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, I really did receive eight cents from ASCAP. It’s come up in recent radio interviews, and I dug through the memory banks (and my desk) for the straight story.\u00a0(If you’re curious, this is how airplay royalties theoretically work<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"ascap01\"<\/a>Normally royalties are part of the conversation that starts with “How much do you make from getting your music played on Spotify?”<\/a> My answer is always “How many places to the right of the 0.0 on the decimal point can you\u00a0go?”
\nThis happened so long ago – December 2008 – that I’d forgotten the actual details.\u00a0Here’s the real story: I received a receipt for eight cents from ASCAP. Not a live check. It was for the year, and was specifically for radio play for my SUV-bashing song, “Good God Man How Big a Car Do You Need?”<\/a> off my first record<\/a>. For airplay in Jamaica. Go figure.<\/p>\n

\"ascap00\"<\/a>So\u00a0it was\u00a0an IOU for eight cents<\/em>. And though I appreciated the notification, I still find it ironic that eight years later, the stamp to mail the statement cost four times what the actual amount on the report was.<\/p>\n

If you’re wondering, of course there’s a song in the works about this. With any luck, it’ll get a bit of airplay, and I’ll be another eight cents further towards early retirement.<\/p>\n