Recently I have had the pleasure at getting annoyed with BMI. Before I get into it, let me provide some background to it.
At SIQ Records, we are asking all the artists to sign up with a Performance Right’s Organization (PRO). The reason is we are hoping to start licensing music out and for publishing. After reviewing the three main PRO’s, in America (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC), we recommended that the artists sign up with BMI. The main reason is because it is free to sign up with BMI. Some of the artists on SIQ are kind of in bad financial shape. It was felt that the free signup of BMI would be best and not be any financial burden to the most impoverished of artists. ASCAP requires a one time fee of $25 and SESAC is selective in who they choose to represent. Also from what I understand ASCAP and BMI are non-profit and have an agreement with the United States Government. BMI sounded like the best choice for a poor struggling musician.
Now, on with the story. After harassing many of the artists to sign with a PRO, I decided I needed to get off my butt and do it to so that I can say I did it. After all I am an SIQ artist and I also wanted to get it accomplished so that I could answer any questions that the artists might have when applying and registering their music.
On June 3, 2008, I applied online with BMI. When the application process is finished it displays a message saying please wait 3-5 business days to receive an email confirmation about your application. I wait for 5 days and nothing arrives in my email box from BMI.
June 8th, five days after initially applying, I decided that I should email BMI to find out what is going on with my application. Also, I was getting some questions, from SIQ artists who already joined BMI, about song registration. Two days later I get a response from BMI. It wasn’t quite the response I was looking for, but it didn’t bother me. It turns out I emailed the wrong department. I emailed the “Online Services Registration” department. I was not sure who to email because on the “contact us” page of BMI.com, in the list of choices there were email addresses for “Online Services Registration” and “Online Works Registration.” I made my choice on what I thought was relevant. The response I got on June 10th from the “Online Services Registration” was that I emailed the wrong department and that the were forwarding my message to the correct department which is the “Writer Administration” department. There was nothing on their contact page about that department nor was there any way to find it unless you went to the online application page.
Three days later I get a reply from Laura Smith from the “Writer Administration” department about my inquiry. She asks me to provide some information or my BMI account number and she will check on my application. There’s some irony, I don’t have a BMI account number because I never got my confirmation email with the BMI account number. At this point I’m pretty happy things seem to be moving along. I respond to her with the requested information.
After that email I was patient. I was thinking that BMI is a big organization membership wise, so they must be busy, so it might take a couple of days. So fast forward to June 27th, I decided to email Laura Smith again to see why there was no response. Once again no response.
Yesterday I decided to search about online application registration problems for BMI and somehow ended up on the online application page. They completely changed the look of that page. So I decided to try to apply again, maybe my application got messed up during the website change. After I fill out the form and press the submit button, it gives me a message saying that because I live in Japan, I have to download an application and mail it to them. They could have at least put a notice on the application web page somewhere saying that.
At this point in time I’m pretty irritated about BMI. Especially that this whole thing could of been taken care of a couple of weeks ago. Laura Smith could of responded to my email and said something along the lines of that because I’m in Japan I need to send in a paper application or that there was a problem with my application and a way to correct is by sending in a paper application.
Now, I’m questioning whether BMI is a good choice? Should I sign with them? Was it a good idea to recommend the SIQ artists to sign with them? I really don’t know the answer to those questions. However, I’m considering my other options for PRO representation. My choices are ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors & Composers) or JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers).
So in the end, I found BMI to be not very helpful.
Update: See BMI Part 2: Response From Smith for the next exciting chapter in this saga.