Last night before I went to bed I got a couple of emails from BMI. One was my application approval and the other was from Lisa Jacquet. Lisa Jacquet email explained to me that it is BMI’s policy for all artists who reside abroad to fill out a W8 form. At this point I was feeling like things are finally getting done. Since it was late and I was tired, I figured that I would take care of setting up my account and filling out that form and send it in. I went to bed a happy camper
This morning I get up check my mail, and there is also a message from Laura Smith that says pretty much the same thing about BMI policy. No big deal because there are 2 people working on my application. After reading that I go setup my account on the BMI website. Then I decide that I’ll go write on my website about how everything has been resolved and that I am no longer irritated with BMI because things finally got done in a quick manner even though it took a little over a month.
When I logged in to write my post I found a comment waiting to be moderated. How odd I thought, because no one ever leaves comments. Usually these are just spam comments that slipped by the spam catcher. In fact I didn’t think many people actually read anything here outside of the Kontakt and Logic information.
To my surprise the comment was for the previous post BMI Part 2. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Here’s the comment:
Dude really…why are you being such a big baby….they are asking u to fill out one paper…regardless of what your friends tell you…if this woman is telling you what they need you to send them in order to proceed with the application process then just do it. Clearly she knows for what purposes it is needed so who cares what paper your friend tells u you need to fill out your friend doesnt work for the company now do they?
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to reply to it or not. As I mulled it over, I decided to go check my web stats. I’m such a big statistic junkie for my site. I mostly view the logs so I can add content that caters to what people are searching for and to see what is popular amongst my posts. I noticed that the BMI posts were getting most of its views from the same ip address range. In fact the comment came from the same IP range. I then did a reverse DNS lookup of that IP and behold to my astonishment, the IP of the comment and majority of the views of my BMI posts are coming from the BMI.com IP address range. After seeing that my new feeling of happiness with BMI has vanished.
At this juncture in time, I’m really considering canceling my BMI account. This overall experience has left me wondering what kind of things should I expect from BMI in regards to future treatment.
Hi guys and girls at BMI, thanks for reading. Remember Ame one loves you!
If you read the previous post about BMI you would know that I am irritated with them at the way my application process is being handled. This morning, I finally get a response from Laura Smith. Actually two responses.
In the first response she tells me that I need to fill out the attached W8-BEN tax form and mail or fax it to her. Sounds reasonable, just got to fill out form and fax it over and my application will be taken care of promptly. However, it’s not that easy. United Stated citizens do not need to fill out a W8 form. That form is for foreign nationals and other foreign entities. It even says at the top of the form, “Do not use this form for: A U.S. Citizen….” The irony about this is that a few weeks ago I had asked my accountant friend about whether I needed to fill out a W-8 form or a W-9 form for the Sound Exchange application. His reply was fill out a W-9 because you are not a foreign citizen.
The second response was that she forwarded my email to a co-worker who is working on my application.
After reading those two emails this morning I responded saying that I do not need to fill out that tax form because I’m not a foreign citizen. I’m just a citizen living abroad.
Be sure to read the next and maybe final chapter of this story: BMI Part 3: The Conclusion
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.
