>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
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>> Maria Pallante: Hello. Welcome to the Coolidge Auditorium in the Library of Congress. It's been an incredibly exciting day today as we celebrate the 100th birthday of ASCAP, one of our most important copyright organizations ever. And it's my privilege today to host this Copyright Matters education program. 
I know you know that we have a fabulous line-up and I know that's why you're here. I'd like to start just by quickly thanking some of our staff because these programs don't materialize overnight; especially Jessica Sebeok. Jessica, where are you? Jacqueline Charlesworth, Karen Temple Claggett, Rosemary Kelly, David Rice, and from ASCAP, the indefatigable Adrian Ross, and Jarrod MacNeil  from the Library's Special Events office. Thank you guys so much for your help.
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[ Applause ]
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Okay, so we're here today to celebrate ASCAP's birthday, but birthdays are not only a cause for celebration, but a cause for reflection. So, as I'll explain in a bit and as I've recently said elsewhere, I think the time has come for Congress to consider how the law might better serve the music marketplace in the digital era.
But, to understand how we got here, I'd like to take my cue from Rodgers and Hammerstein's, The Sound of Music, and start from the very beginning.
Though, as you may know, our first Copyright Act in 1790 did not protect music at all. Most songs and other musical compositions in early America were pirated English compositions. To just give the most famous example, the "Star-Spangled Banner" is based on the melody of an old English drinking song.
[Background Music] Name that tune [laughter]. All right. Things got better. On February 4th, 1831, Congress first granted the authors of musical compositions quote "the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, and vending their works for a period of 28 years."
The new law did not give composers, or any other authors for that matter, the right to prevent others from performing their works, however. But at the time, performances were considered the vehicle by which to spur the sale of sheet music.
In fact, the 1831 law ushered in a very productive and lucrative period in American music publishing that lasted through the Civil War. As The Knickerbocker magazine observed in 1859, our "sheet-music publishers now do mostly a copyright business. Many of these copyrights are very valuable."
However, the success of music publishers obscured the fact that it remained very difficult for professional songwriters to make a living in the mid-19th century. Composers typically transferred their copyrights to their publishers in exchange for royalty payments.
One contemporary composer, John Hill Hewitt, complained that songwriting was not a sustainable profession quote "for the simple reason that it does not pay the author."
Another composer, Henry Russell, lamented that reliance on those royalty payments would have meant "simple starvation."
In 1856, Congress enacted America's first public performance right. The right was restricted, however, to dramatic compositions. Now, for those of you who attended the 100th birthday of the Dramatists Guild a few weeks ago, you know that in part, that was because dramatists were responsible for amending the law and making their case. A public performance right for musical compositions would follow in 1897.
When the first technology for the mechanical reproduction of music began to appear in the latter half of the 19th century, it became clear that the copyright law that had worked so well to protect against the infringement of sheet music, was not very well-equipped to deal with new forms of reproduction.
But, by the end of the 19th century, two major developments in the law strengthened the ability of composers to respond to the challenges posed by these new technologies. In 1891, Congress passed the International Copyright Act, which extended copyright protection to foreign authors and demanded reciprocal protection for U.S. authors.
Six years later, in 1897, Congress passed the Cummings Bill, and that bill imposed liability with attendant criminal penalties and injunctive relief for the unauthorized public performance of dramatic or musical compositions.
The extension of the public performance right to composers was to have a profound effect on American composers and the American music business. As technology generated newer and greater mechanisms for reproducing and performing music, people turned their attention again to the law.
The newfangled player piano, for example, and the phonograph, were embraced enthusiastically by Americans and were soon everywhere in American homes, concert venues, restaurants, stores, saloons, and penny arcades.
In 1909, the law began to get interesting. Now, those gentlemen need no introduction, but in -- at this period of time, Congress was looking at a major revision of the Copyright Act, the first since 1790. And for the first time in U.S. copyright history, I'd say that music was actually the star of the proceedings.
Several famous composers, Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa among them, offered frank testimony in support of the proposed bill. Sousa protested that when "these perforated roll companies and these phonograph companies take my property and put it on their records, they take something that I am interested in and they give me no interest in it. When they make money out of my pieces, I want a share of it."
Herbert declared that he and Sousa were testifying "for many hundreds of poor fellows who have not been able to come here today, brother composers whose names and figure -- whose names figure on the advertisements of these companies who make talking machines and have never received a cent. Morally, there is only one side to it," he said.
Now the 1909 Act had a major impact on the rights of American composers, most notably in two respects. First, Congress clarified that the mechanical reproductions were covered under copyright and created a compulsory mechanical license. This license today is codified in Section 115 of the Copyright Act.
Second, the 1909 Act limited the public performance right for musical compositions to public performances for profit. 
So, unfortunately, the 1909 Act did not define the terms "performance," "public performance" and "public performance for profit," however, so the provision was initially interpreted to mean that a license to publicly perform a composition was only required if admission was charged.
Composers knew that even if they were legally entitled to collect for the performances of their works, it would be impossible in practice to police every performance by themselves. In October 1913, composer Victor Herbert and his attorney Nathan Burkan, and a number of other notable composers and music publishers braved heavy rains to gather at LŸchow's, the New York restaurant where Herbert and Burkan were regulars, to discuss how they might solve the public performance problem.
On February 13th, 1914, a second meeting was held at the Hotel Claridge in Times Square and more than 100 composers crowded the meeting room. Here, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers was born.
Now, I have to say that Victor Herbert deserves an enormous amount of credit, but we have to give just a small amount of credit to the copyright lawyer, who's in the picture, and I know that on my staff, we have a number of people who over the years have won the Nathan Burkan Competition, which copyright lawyers know as a legal writing competition sponsored by ASCAP.
So in 1917, ASCAP achieved its first major victory in the Supreme Court in the seminal case Herbert v. Shanley, authored by Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Victor Herbert had sued Shanley's, a New York restaurant, for an authorized performance of his song, "Sweethearts," the license to which was controlled by ASCAP.
Let's see if I can play it for you.
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[ Music ] 
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The restaurant said that because it did not charge a fee for admission to its premises, it only charged for the food, the performance of "Sweethearts" was not "for profit." Chief Justice Holmes disagreed, observing that if music did not pay, it would have to be given up.
In a famous opinion, he said that if the restaurant was in the business of making a profit, and if music was a component of the overall ambience and service that conduced to making that profit, then the performance of the music was for profit.
In 1921, ASCAP distributed its first royalty payments to its members amounting to approximately $82,000.
Now, in a second landmark decision in the Supreme Court in 1923, Wittmark & Songs v. L. Bamberger, the Court held that performances by radio broadcast were for profit and required a licence even if the broadcast was free. Unsurprisingly, this decision exacerbated simmering tensions between ASCAP and radio broadcasters.
In 1939, the NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters, created BMI as an alternative to ASCAP, but the competitor did little to prevent ASCAP from continuing to raise its rates, some said.
This tension came to a boil on New Year's Day in 1941 when NAB demonstrated its opposition to ASCAP's pricing structures by banning ASCAP music from the airwaves. Enter the Department of Justice. The Justice Department took notice and on December 26th, 1940, it filed suit against ASCAP and BMI and both national radio networks accusing them of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.
In late February, ASCAP and BMI entered into consent decrees still operative today designed to protect licensees from price discrimination or anti-competitive behavior. Under these, ASCAP and BMI administer the public performance right on a non-exclusive basis, and they offer the same terms to similarly situated licensees. In addition, starting in the '50s, prospective licensees were able to seek determination of a reasonable license fee for ASCAP and BMI works in the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York.
So today, as you all know, the foundation of our copyright law is still the 1976 Copyright Act. Yet in the nearly 40 years since President Gerald Ford signed the Copyright Act of 1976 into law, technology for reproducing and performing music has evolved dramatically from vinyl records to 8-tracks and cassettes to CDs, to digital downloads, MP3s, music lockers, and peer-to-peer file sharing.
Music has never been so abundantly available from so many different sources and with so much interactivity as it is today. But, as singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett recently observed, amidst the "evolution of the many and various vehicles for delivery of music, what remains remarkably constant is the struggle to convince music users and our lawmakers that songs still need to be safeguarded and songwriters still need to get paid fairly for what they do."
All of these new music technologies and services have raised critical copyright questions and have prompted urgent calls for a comprehensive evaluation of our music licensing regimes. Good faith actors in the music marketplace are in agreement that songwriters and recording artists, as well as the music publishers and record labels who invest in their careers, deserve to be compensated for the value of their creative contributions.
In the past decade however, as the market for CDs and other physical formats has declined, songwriters and recording artists have increasingly expressed frustration that the royalties they receive from new legal digital services fail to make up for the loss in income from the sale of physical goods.
Thus, we need to take a close look at the impact of the various rate setting standards within and across different music delivery platforms to see if they further the goals of the copyright system, one of the most fundamental of which is to ensure fair returns to creators.
At the same time, those seeking to bring music-related products to the marketplace struggle with the complexity of and obstacles in the music licensing process. An online music service typically must offer access to millions of songs in order to be a viable player in the marketplace, and many music services are required to obtain both performance and reproduction rights for the use of the same work.
In recent years, some frustrated music publishers, especially larger ones, are choosing to lisence their public performance rights directly to digital services instead of through ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC.
The fact that everyone from creators, to consumers, to licensees are frustrated, suggests the system isn't working. There isn't anything wrong with direct licensing of rights on the open marketplace, but many authors, small publishers, and music lovers prefer and rely on the advantages that are offered by collective licensing.
For these reasons, I believe the time has come to review the role of the consent decrees governing ASCAP and BMI and their impact on the music marketplace to assess whether in the digital marketplace they are facilitating or hindering a robust exchange of transactions.
Certainly, the government has responsibilities in this space. The challenge is how to reconcile or rationalize issues of competition, with respect to which the government has a very serious role, with the beneficial aspects of the collective management model, the purpose of which is no less relevant today than it was in 1914.
In the end, collective licensing is a critical paradigm in the copyright system. It was innovative when ASCAP was founded 100 years ago, and it is well worth the time to get it right in this current era, an era in which musical works can reach more people more quickly than Victor Herbert could possibly have imagined, and which if marked by anything, by the need for efficient, if not invisible, permissions transactions.
As the Copyright Office suggested in its 2011 discussion document, Legal Issues in Mass Digitization, voluntary collective licensing, adapted appropriately and perhaps complemented by micro-licensing systems, remains a vital option for clearing rights to musical works in the digital era.
The experience of other countries supports this view. In many other countries, collective management organizations license both public performance and the reproduction and distribution right for musical compositions, which allow for one-stop shopping. And just this month, the European Parliament adopted a new Directive to modernize collective rights management and develop multi-territorial licensing.
The Directive is structured to ensure that rights holders have more control over the management of their rights and quote to "facilitate the entry of smaller, innovative suppliers on the European market," thereby leading to wider availability and more choice in the legal online music market.
Finally, we must not lose sight of the fact that collecting societies at home and abroad offer their members so much more than just rights management and royalty collection. They offer legal, political and logistical services, including enforcement of their rights, which are more important than ever as increasing numbers of artists are self-produced and self-managed. And, they even offer artists moral support.
Country music artist Deana Carter, recently said, "ASCAP is officially the most committed relationship I've ever had." These tangible and intangible services and quantifiable and unquantifiable benefits, taken together, give artists the stability and security that they need to keep writing music.
According to Valerie Simpson of Motown fame, thanks to ASCAP quote, "we didn't have to think about it. All we had to do was create."
Before I leave the topic and introduce our guests, I want to highlight that the Copyright Office is in the midst of studying these and a number of other music issues for the benefit of Congress and the comprehensive review that is underway. We will very shortly be issuing a public notice on a number of questions and some of these are on the screen.
Whether the consent decrees, governing licensing practices of ASCAP or BMI are continuing to function as intended in the era of digital music; whether and, if so, how the government might encourage the adoption of universal standards in our practices with respect to the identification of musical works and sound recordings; whether existing rate setting standards are efficient and yield fair results; and, in the reproduction and distribution context, whether the Section 115 statutory license is effective.
I also want to offer a few final words about ASCAP on the occasion of its birthday. As I was preparing these remarks, I considered and then rejected a number of clichŽs, and then I realized that the most elegant and fitting tribute to the work that ASCAP has done in its first 100 years are the words Kermit the Frog sings in Paul's beloved song, "Rainbow Connection": "Somebody thought of that and someone believed it. Look what it's done so far." Thank you. 
Let me introduce our esteemed guests. Let me start with Dee Dee Myers. Dee Dee is Managing Director at the highly respected Glover Park Group, with years of experience in politics, policy, and media. She counsels corporate and non-profit clients on strategic communications, reputation management, and integrated marketing. 
If her name sounds familiar, it's because she served as White House Press Secretary during President Bill Clinton's first term, the first woman to hold that job. She was the President's chief spokesman, managing day-to-day interactions with the media and providing strategic communications counsel to the President and his administration.
Ms. Myers is still a respected political analyst and a commentator. She's a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, Oprah Magazine, the Washington Post, Politico, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications.
Her 2008 book, Why Women Should Rule the World, became a New York Times bestseller and earned her an EMMA Award for Excellence and a Georgetown University Women's Leadership Initiative Award.
Ms. Myers is also creative. She was an original consultant for the acclaimed NBC drama the West Wing. Throughout the show's long, long run, she worked with the writers, directors, producers, cast and crew to shape stories and create the look and feel of the production. She was recognized by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for her contributions. She will moderate our discussion and performances today.
Jimmy Webb, we found your early registrations. I won't say the year if you can't see it. Jimmy Webb is a critically acclaimed songwriter whose talent is immeasurable. He is the only artist ever to receive Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. He has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he was the recipient of the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award.
Mr. Webb is from Oklahoma, the son of a preacher, and his music has been thrilling audiences for more than 40 years. Consider some of these instant classics. For Glen Campbell, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston"; for Richard Harris, "MacArthur Park" and "Didn't We"; for The 5th Dimension, "Up, Up and Away"; for The Brooklyn Bridge, "The Worst that Could Happen"; for Art Garfunkel, "All I Know"; for Joe Cocker, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," and so many more.
In the late '80s, his ballad, "The Highwayman," performed by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, won a Grammy for Best Country Song of the Year and a CMA Award for Single of the Year.
Linda Ronstadt, who has recorded a multitude of his songs throughout her career included four songs on her double platinum album, Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind, and scored a top 10 in 1990 with her rendition of Webb's, "Adios." And let's not forget Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, and REM.
In addition to writing songs for other artists, Mr. Webb has been releasing albums of his own for many years including the acclaimed 2010 release, Just Across the River, which features Billy Joel, Vince Gill, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, and Glen Campbell.
His 2013 album release, Still Within the Sound of My Voice, features vocal duets with Carly Simon, Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Brian Wilson, Amy Grant, America, Joe Cocker, Keith Urban, David Crosby, and Graham Nash.
In 1999, Webb wrote a book entitled, Tunesmith, which was acclaimed "the finest book about songwriting of our time" by Musician magazine. In 2011, Mr. Webb was named Chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
And Paul. Paul Williams is one of the most beloved and respected music creators in the world today. A lyricist and composer, his songs and scores have received numerous awards and nominations. He holds an Oscar Award, two Grammy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. He's been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 
His work includes, for example, "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "You and Me Against the World," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," "Let Me Be the One," "The Love Boat" theme, and the "Rainbow Connection."
The songs of Paul Williams have been recorded by such diverse and gifted performers as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, David Bowie, Tony Bennett, The Carpenters, Luther Vandross, Willie Nelson, REM, Ann Murray, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Dianna Krall, Sarah Vaughan, Sarah McLachlan, Jason Mraz, The Dixie Chicks, Gonzo, and Kermit the Frog.
"The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie appears on the American Film Institute's list of top movie songs of all time, as does "Evergreen," from the award winning Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson remake of A Star Is Born.
His recent work has remained wonderfully diverse, as well. For example, he wrote, "Beyond and Touch," for Daft Punk's Album of the Year, Random Access Memories. He also performed on the album, receiving a Grammy as a featured artist.
Of course, everyone in this auditorium knows that Paul Williams is the President and the Chairman of ASCAP, and he is tireless in that role. Given his vision and his humor and his knowledge of the business, we are fortunate indeed to have him here today for this centennial celebration.
It won't surprise you that he is a trusted and revered mentor to songwriters, composers and lyricists who are coming up behind him, and words really don't do this justice. So I've asked Kermit to help me out.
[ Music ]
>> To introduce our guest star, that's what I'm here to do, so it really makes me happy to introduce to you, Mr. Paul Williams!
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Hi ho, good friends! Hey, we got a great show for you tonight. Our special guest is Mr. Paul Williams: singer, composer, actor, and all-around good guy. And we're not going to do any jokes about his size, but he's such a cute little fellow, we're going to make him an honorary Muppet.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Thank you, Maria, for that. First, the brief overview of ASCAP's fabulous 100 years and for underscoring the value that is provided throughout each and every one of those years. It's an honor and privilege for me to be here, and thank you all of you for being here to be in conversation with these two. You've heard their bios, so you know they're incredibly accomplished songwriters.
Before we get going, I'll take a couple of minutes to watch a video that I think will sort of set the tone for the life and mind of a songwriter.
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>> You want to start at the piano?
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[ Music ]
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>> The beginning of any piece of music is an idea. You want to communicate something. We are able to share experiences. We can learn from each other's mistakes. We can understand that other people go through what we go through, and I want you to feel what I feel.
>> To keep an experience from disappearing.
>> I think of it as like painting with emotion.
>> To make something timeless, to make something that no matter what it is, you feel it. Whether you want to or not, you feel it. That's not an easy thing to do.
>> We are the ones behind that. 
>> Every single thing you hear comes from the mind and the heart of a songwriter.
>> Writing music is so personal.
>> There's a lot of struggle can go into a two-minute song, you know.
>> Fear can be absolutely paralyzing and cause you to not write. A lot of people end up calling that writer's block, and what it actually is fear of it not being good.
>> The hardest thing for anybody is to stick with it.
>> You have to have the passion for the nuance of it, that thing that makes you want to go through that much struggle.
>> It's a labor of love for almost everybody who does it.
>> There's a lot easier ways to make money.
>> For most songwriters, you make 99% of your money on about 1% of your songs.
>> It's crazy. 
>> People expect music to be free. It's like something we breathe, and that's why we love it. It feels like it is part of the world and has always been there.
>> It's an odd marriage: business and heart.
>> The only way that we are able to make a living is by convincing people, sometimes one at a time, that this thing that we have won't exist without us, and it is necessary.
>> I think music is the most valuable family that there is.
>> It's a language that affects us all.
>> Music goes everywhere.
>> It's a universal language. 
>> It's just a feel like on some level somebody understands what you're feeling.
>> It makes the possibility of strangers or even enemies having your same emotions somehow more real.
>> And when something is moving you, whether it's to laugh or to cry or to dance, it's magical.
>> I think music always can make life better.
>> It can take you to a place that you've never gone before.
>> There's nothing you can do but feel the emotion that that song is telling you to feel.
>> I just love the way that it seems to light up your brain.
>> Wow the kids again.
>> Emotion that you just can't control.
>> It becomes a part of people's lives.
>> Simple musical ideas can have that effect.
>> Knocks down
>> Language barriers, age barriers, race barriers.
>> Connects you to something that is beyond humanity.
>> That's the power of music.
>> I think music is the most important, highest form of human communication.
>> I'm Bill Withers. My name is Aloe Blacc, Amy Grant, Bear McCreary, Dan Wilson, Claudia Brant, Sova Katacha, David Lang, Lady Antebellum, Josh Kear, Carter Burwell, Stargate, my name is Ne-Yo, and I create music.
>> I create music.
>> I create music.
>> And I create music.
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>> [Applause]. 
Dee Dee Myers: That's pretty powerful. You two are all--
>> Paul Williams: Oh, I got all weepy.
>> Dee Dee Myers: But you know, ASCAP brought together that group of incredibly gifted songwriters in honor of -- you know, to talk about songwriting in honor of the 100th anniversary, and what happened?
>> Paul Williams: Well they wound up writing a song. You get a bunch of songwriters together and go [singing] and somebody starts humming, so at least somebody says this is a brilliant idea. Why don't we express this the way we know how to express things? They reached into the center of their chest and they found those words that ended in a wonderful, wonderful song created out of what was supposed to be just a gathering for a video; songwriters doing what they do.
>> Dee Dee Myers: That's right. Jimmy, when did you know you wanted to be a songwriter? Were these songs inside you just angling to get out?
>> Jimmy Webb: Well, you mentioned that my dad was a preacher, and I was very active in church music. My mother wanted me to be church pianist, and in fact in her mind, that was the epitome. That was all that a person would ever hope to attain.
And when I was 12 years old, I was there. I was playing piano for services, and I began to do long improvisations for offertories and funerals and weddings and things like that. And I began to feel this love for inventing things of my own.
And I wrote my first song when I was 13 and after I wrote that song, I never wanted to be anything else. I never thought about anything else. I never -- to this day, I've never done anything else.
>> Paul Williams: And the world's a better place [laughter].
>> Dee Dee Myers: That's for sure.
>> Paul Williams: The world's a better place.
>> Jimmy Webb: And I've been a very lucky guy, a lucky guy to be able to do that.
>> Dee Dee Myers: When did you write your first song?
>> Paul Williams: Well I started, I didn't -- I set out to become a sex object [inaudible]. 
>> Dee Dee Myers: And you succeeded.
>> Paul Williams: Being a realist, I wanted to be a movie star, but as you know, I felt like Montgomery Cliff but I looked like Hayley Mills. Looking at the picture of me in those days, I was not a working actor and I had all this emotion. I'm 26, 27 years old. You know, what I loved to do, I wanted to act. I just was hard to cast. I looked -- I was an actor. I looked like a kid until you put me next to a real kid, then I looked like a kid with a hangover, right [laughter].
You know, so I couldn't really get work, but I had all this emotion. I'm this tiny little guy. I was four six when I got out of high school. I was maybe eight inches shorter than I am now, and so anytime I talked to a girl I'd say could we maybe go out and what I got was this, you know, until I played a song for her, and I saw her head go like this. Ah, and I thought oh, there's something you want to do. I fell in love with writing from the very first song.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Do you remember when you sold your first song?
>> Jimmy Webb: I certainly remember the day that I walked into Motown Records, which was where I first had a job as a songwriter. I had odds and ends recorded. There's a fellow named Dick Glasser at Warner Brothers Music and his clients were the Everly Brothers. Well, I'd grown up on -- to me, this, these were demi-gods, you know.
And Dick heard a couple of my songs and he got them on an Everly Brothers album for me and I thought that's it. I made it. Don't have to do anything else.
>> Yeah.
>> Jimmy Webb: You know. But then I realized that you know somehow or other, you have to keep money coming in to be able to devote so much time to this, and I became a staff writer at Motown Records and I got the education of my life at [inaudible].
And really, the best day of my life was the day that that big door literally opened and someone let me in, let me in to the music business. And I think about young writers today, if I may digress for just a minute, and I think that those doors are not opening for young writers today with any acceptable degree of frequency.
And I think there's -- I think Paul and I both agree that we were lucky--
>> Paul Williams: We were very lucky.
>> Jimmy Webb: -- to be where we were at the right time.
>> Paul Williams: And it's a learn-by-doing experience. You know, ASCAP is the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and I take my hat off to publishers because that's where I learned about songwriting. I walked -- I showed up at A&M Records in a stolen car. Well, it wasn't stolen, it was borrowed. I was going to take it back.
>> Jimmy Webb: No, it was stolen.
>> Paul Williams: But a guy name Chuck Kaye put me together with Roger Nichols, a brilliant composer, and that became my music school. I mean what he had learned to do you know, I you know, I sat down with somebody in an office and we started writing songs.
And they'd say so and so and so and so and so and so is looking for a song. What that pub grade publishing company did for me is it allowed for me to make a living, or, you know, have enough money as an advance to get by until my songs began to play and because of the performance royalty involved, I was able to have a life, find a wife, have kids, feed my family.
>> Dee Dee Myers: When did you both join ASCAP and what was that experience like? We saw your original application form. That was pretty special.
>> Jimmy Webb: Well, I'm going to be very candid with you. We used to bounce -- some of us, used to bounce back and forth between BMI and ASCAP. 
>> Paul Williams: Shocking. Shocking.
>> Jimmy Webb: You know, I mean we all did silly things when we were kids [laughter].
>> Paul Williams: Good cover.
>> Jimmy Webb: But is that the best I could do [laughter]?
>> Paul Williams: Great.
>> Jimmy Webb: And but I think that I joined, I really joined ASCAP about 1971 or '72 and I joined for good and I joined because I felt like it was right for me. And in no small part also, and I'll be honest about this, because of the legacy of ASCAP, because it reaches so deeply into the American songbook through Lerner and Loewe and Rodgers and Hammerstein and Cole Porter.
>> Paul Williams: Got it. Rodgers and Hart.
>> Jimmy Webb: And Larry --
>> Paul Williams: We could do this all day.
>> Jimmy Webb: Larry Hart, who was Mr. Sinatra's favorite lyricist because of his like sort of, kind of "My Funny Valentine," that sort of a humorous look at heartache I guess is the best way to explain it.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Now -- oh, I'm sorry.
>> Jimmy Webb: No, no, I'm finished. It's just that I wanted to be a part of all that.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Right.
>> Jimmy Webb: And I wanted to be thought to be you know, maybe in that group in some small way, you know.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Part of that great chain--
>> Jimmy Webb: Yes, a chain of--
>> Paul Williams: A brilliant composer by the name of Sammy Cahn --
>> Dee Dee Myers: Oh, yeah.
>> Paul Williams: -- took me by the hand and said you know, Paul, you belong over at ASCAP, so he walked me over.
>> Dee Dee Myers: And so -- and here you are. And little did he know that you would someday be Chairman and President, so but you know, you guys are both obviously well-known songwriters and you also both perform. And so we would be delighted if in that spirit, if you could both perform a song for us [laughter].
>> Paul Williams: Mr. Webb, please.
>> [Applause] Come on, I'll twist your arm.
>> Jimmy Webb: Well this first song I'm going to do is a -- it was my first hit. It was Song of the Year in 1967. It won a Grammy for best song and a lot of awards were won that night, but I got one of them. And it had an interesting history because I will say this as briefly as I can. This song was banned from radio at one point because it was thought to be about drugs. 
And the interesting thing about that is that of all the songs that were on the radio that week, this is the only one that wasn't about drugs. [Laughter]
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Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon? [Applause] Would you like to glide in my beautiful balloon? We could float among the stars together, you and I. For we can fly. Almost.
Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon.
The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon. It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon. If you hold my hand we'll chase your dreams across the sky. I don't think I can make this time. You want to try to help me a little bit? Okay, here we go. 
For we can fly. Fly. Up, up and away, in my beautiful, I said my beautiful -- thanks for your help on that ladies and -- so suspended under the twilight canopy. We'll search the clouds for a star to guide us. If by some chance you find yourself loving me. We'll find a cloud to hide us. Keep the moon beside us. Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon. 
Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon, if you hold my hand we'll chase your dreams across the sky -- don't be shy -- for we can fly. We can fly. Up, up and away in my beautiful, I said my beautiful, my beautiful, my beautiful, my beautiful balloon. 
Sing it up, up and away. Up, up and away, Up, up and away, oh yeah. 
>> [Applause] 
>> Paul Williams: Bravo.
>> Dee Dee Myers: All right.
>> Paul Williams: My up, fantastic. Wow.
>> Dee Dee Myers: That was great.
>> Paul Williams: Well, I'm instrumentally challenged. I can't walk and chew, so I'd like you to meet the band of Mr. Chris Caswell [applause].
>> Paul Williams: I want to dedicate this to our Registrar of Copyrights [laughter]. Ms. Pallante, my darling Maria, you've made me cry, and anybody that makes me cry with something as lovely as what you said, has to be sung a love song. This one had all the romantic beginnings of a bank commercial. I swear to God, it was a bank commercial. And then an angel sang it and turned it into a hit.
[ Music ]
>> We've only just begun to live. White lace and promises. A kiss for luck and we're on our way. We've only just begun. We've only just begun. 
Before the rising sun we fly. There's so many roads to choose. We start out walking and learn to run. Yes we've just begun. It's only been 100 years.
Sharing horizons that are new to us, watching the signs along the way -- a circle with a C.  Talking it over just the two of us, working together day by day together. 
And when the evening comes we smile -- you kids go to bed -- there's so much of life still ahead. We'll find a place where there's room, we're going to find room to grow. Yes, we've just begun. 
We survive because we adapt, we adapt to the changing landscape, to live. We've only just begun. I think I'd better give this applause to Karen Carpenter. Karen, this applause is for you [ applause ]. To Chris Caswell. 
>> [Applause] Thank you, brother. Thank you -- yeah.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Thank you not only for those fabulous performances but for bringing those songs into all of our lives. There's no one in here who wasn't singing along. So anyway, thank you. Thank you both. So great to hear that.
Now let's talk a little bit about how you get paid for all that creativity. How do songwriters get paid, right? Most people know a little bit, or think they know a little bit about how recording artists get paid. Like, they do concerts and they sell CDs and records and they sell t-shirts and things like that.
>> Paul Williams: Well, nobody wants to buy a t-shirt with my picture on it and I've, and yes I record. But I made albums even my family didn't buy, Dee Dee. I was -- the fact is, you go back the headwaters of this whole deal and Maria took us through that beautifully.
There are two copyrights involved. The fact that there is a copyright for the song, the original material that has been created. When the song is recorded or filmed, there's a second copyright. So there are two copyrights.
ASCAP is involved in the performance royalty of the first copyright and all, and you want to jump in here, [inaudible].
>> Jimmy Webb: Well, I just want to say that we today, in this environment, we make most of our money from performance royalties because mechanicals have for all practical purposes, they've disappeared.
>> Paul Williams: They've certainly come way down.
>> Jimmy Webb: With the -- well, with the dissemination of music on the Internet primarily.
>> Dee Dee Myers: And mechanical royalties, just to bring everybody up to speed.
>> Paul Williams: When the CD was sold, you know, when something that is you can hold in your hand is sold, there is -- that royalty is a mechanical royalty. There are a lot of ways we can make money. We love it when Colt calls and says we want to use one of your songs in a commercial. That's wonderful. But the meat and potatoes of a songwriter's life is his performance royalty. My kids had food on the table. I had gas in the car to take my kids to school because I was a member of ASCAP. 
ASCAP has over 500 -- almost 500,000 members at this point. They're essentially small businessmen. I'm a small businessman, present President of ASCAP. We're small businessmen and ASCAP -- you know, we could never have written the second song if we had to go out and keep track of who was recording our stuff.
ASCAP does that for us, does it beautifully. 250 billion performances last year were monitored, licensed, paid for to the songwriters and the composers who created it. There is nobody in the world that is better handed in the digital age to handle this job than ASCAP.
>> Jimmy Webb: We get, we get, in a way we get kind of scolded sometimes. Well, you guys are Luddites. You know you can't just say we want to -- we want our CDs back, you know. We don't really say that. We embrace new technology and we love the fact that our songs are just disseminated wider than ever before in history.
>> Paul Williams: Not only that, but I no longer have to have a memory, because ask me anything. I will tell you in a heartbeat, you know.
>> Jimmy Webb: But the thing is that honestly, the payments, the payments to songwriters have not kept pace with the distribution of the music to more and more listeners.
>> Paul Williams: In the world of streaming especially, and we'll talk about this in a little more detail I think maybe a little later, but the fact -- and when you deal with the streaming, when you talk about somebody paying eight cents for 1000 streams, you can't feed a family on that.
And the fact is, we're out of balance to the rest of the world too, Dee Dee, as you know. The fact is, around the world, when music is streamed, there's a balance between that other copyright and ours that is much closer to 50/50. Some places it's 40/60. It moves around and all.
But we have a World Trade Organization that we're a part of where -- and a part of what we have to do is kind of honor these things and stay in balance with the rest of the world. And what is exciting about what's going on right now with, you know, with what our Registrar has talked about examining the copyright law and looking at some of the changes that can be made to put us not only instantly in a position that is fair for the songwriter, but puts us in step with the rest of the world.
>> Jimmy Webb: I mean to be specific about it, for instance on a service like Pandora or -- Pandora is an example that I know that my math is pretty good on. There is a performance royalty being paid that is -- that includes an artist's record company royalty that is 14 times larger than ours, 14 to one ratio. So that's saying well the record and the artist are 14 times more important than the song that makes all -- in our view, and traditionally--
>> Paul Williams: If he hadn't written the song, there'd be nothing to record. I mean let's remind everybody that you all love hearing Glen Campbell sing those wonderful songs and all, but if Mr. Webb hadn't written the songs, there'd be nothing for him to record. So it's just--
>> Dee Dee Myers: Right. And what you are alluding to is right. Most people probably don't know that the royalties that you are paid are governed, that the system is governed by federal copyright laws, right? It's one of the reasons we're all here today.
>> Paul Williams: Exactly.
>> Dee Dee Myers: And that makes it sometimes hard, right; the fact that it's federal law makes it hard for the market, the regulatory system to keep pace with the changing music ecosystem, right? The world is changing really fast.
>> Jimmy Webb: True. We're celebrating our 100th anniversary, which is wonderful. But 71 of those years, we've lived under constraint by the Justice Department.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Right.
>> Jimmy Webb: Because of perhaps some mistakes that were made. You know, it's hard for us to even relate to what was going on 71 years ago.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Right.
>> Jimmy Webb: So we don't really know how it relates to the very complex--
>> Paul Williams: Yeah.
>> Jimmy Webb: -- business situation that we face today.
>> Dee Dee Myers: Right. Go ahead.
>> Paul Williams: I was just going to say do you want to talk about the consent decree now or do you want to do it after?
>> Dee Dee Myers: Well we can start now and then we'll take a break.
>> Paul Williams: The consent decree that we operate under which was created when ASCAP was considered a monopoly, you know, the amount of the marketplace that is ours has drastically changed and all. And what one of the elements of the consent decree that is so unfair is we have no right to refuse.
You know basically, if anybody asks for an -- that which we love incidentally giving -- asks for an ASCAP license to play our music, we, by order of arrangement with Justice, we have to give them that. But then you know it's -- then they can decide whether or not they want to pay us what we're asking, and all of a sudden we wind up in rate court.
It's as if I walked into your delicatessen. I ordered a ham on rye, whatever, and I sat there and ate the sandwich and I went that's a good sandwich. It's a good sandwich but I'm not sure it's worth $4.00. Let me see, I'll give you -- as my wife said, it's as if House of Pancakes doesn't want to pay for the batter.
It's just -- it's not fair. We're -- we've lost -- we have no right to refuse and people can use our music, not being because they're not infringing. All of a sudden, we're in a situation where we sometimes go into court without -- you know.
>> Jimmy Webb: 10 years later.
>> Paul Williams: Exactly. And the money we're spending to get the fair payment is member's money. We're a not-for profit organization. We're a membership organization. ASCAP is owned and operated by its membership. It's songwriters. It's composers, and it's publishers.
>> Dee Dee Myers: You know, can you talk really movingly about how somehow it's a cottage industry. You guys are small businessmen.
>> Paul Williams: Yep.
>> Jimmy Webb: Well, I've always looked at it not to be cutesy about it, necessarily, but I think that if there is a cottage industry in America, it's probably songwriting. It takes place a lot of times on a garage band level. And in my own life, I have four strapping, handsome, talented sons who want to be songwriters and want to be musicians, so this is part of my daily life.
I see the struggles and I see the door of opportunity not opening for them, but inexorably closing for them. And I think if all Americans thought of their families as victims in a way of a giant door of opportunity that's slowly closing, and once closed, the chances of us reopening that door this century are going to -- and I want to add to that, by the way -- that I have a daughter who just graduated Cal Berkeley last year.
She graduated magna cum laude and the Phi Beta Kappa in Spanish and psychology, and she went to Argentina for three months. And she came back and she said, "Dad, I want to be a songwriter."
>> [Laughter] Oh, my gosh.
>> Dee Dee Myers: No, you thought you'd freed her.
>> Jimmy Webb: I'm dying up here. Yeah.
>> Paul Williams: Dee Dee, one of the things that we should say at this point, too, is because what -- you know, what is going on right now, the work that is being done is about the future of songwriting and the young songwriters and all.
But if you look at ASCAP's history, at every level, we were with them; first with radio who said that's not a performance, that's a radio transmission. But from radio, television, cable, satellite, at every level of wonderful technology that offers our music, ASCAP has stepped up to the plate and said "No, this is a performance and we've managed to come up really meaningful good solid relationships for the people who use our music."
And our goal is to never ever stop the music. What we want the music -- in the ears of the people that love it at every level and all. And our future is going to be bright. We will work this out and we will make sure that -- there was a great line from Bill Withers, a songwriter, had one of the classic lines. And we were in an office talking to a senator.
He said, "Senator, we got some problems with the way -- with the rules we have to operate under, and if you don't change those rules, Senator, we're not going to be able to make a living as songwriters. We're going to have to get day jobs. And, Senator, you do not want Ozzy Osbourne as your plumber."
>> [Laughter] So for the young songwriters and to keep everybody safe from Ozzy as a plumber, we're working on it and you're working on it.
>> Dee Dee Myers: You know what comes through so much from both of you is your passion for songwriting even if it breaks your heart that your children are following in your vaunted footsteps.
So before we talk more about how to keep that door from closing, love it if both of you could play another song for us.
>> Jimmy Webb: Sure, okay. You want to go first?
>> Paul Williams: I'll go first this time. I will, I will. Mr. Caswell, I'm going to do -- all right, I'm going to do little bits of two songs that begin with the word love. My songs are basically codependent anthems, you know.
Pick me up and love me. Ouch Mommy. I don't want to go home alone. These two songs begin with the words love you. You'll never hear them together again, ever.
[ Music ]
Love, soft as an easy chair. Love, as fresh as the morning air. One love that is shared by two, I have found with you. Like a rose under the April snow, I was always certain that our love would grow. We found love ageless and -- title -- evergreen, finally, seldom seen by two.
That's enough Evergreen. Let's do the other one that begins with love. Here's the other one. You heard this every week for 11 years.
[ Music ]
Love, exciting and new. Come aboard, we're expecting you. I say love, life's sweetest reward, let it flow, give it away, it floats back to you. The Love Boat, promises something for everyone. Come on. Love Boat at the Library of Congress. That's a - That's enough. Jimmy, it's all yours. That's too much. Chris Caswell, everybody.
^M00:58:48
[ Applause ]
^M00:58:56
>> Dee Dee Myers: I love it.  Thanks so -- takes a lot of nerve to sing "The Love Boat" at the Library of Congress [laughter].
>> Jimmy Webb: Well, I happen to like the "The Love Boat." It's one of my favorite Paul William's songs and nice tickling on the ivories there, Cas. I have a -- I had a professional relationship for many years with --  and a close friendship with a guy who's well-known to most Americans named Glen Campbell, who started in show business as a summer replacement show for the Smothers Brothers on CBS and became a kind of an American institution. And people like to say well, you know, he wouldn't have been anywhere without those songs of yours, you know.
And that's just simply not true. There's a divine chemistry between a song and singer, and a writer and a producer, and a group of musicians, that is so ineffable, so complex to even try to comprehend the mathematics of what makes a hit record.

^M01:00:14
That is why we say we make 99% of our income from 1% of our output because it's so difficult to cut a hit record.  But Glen and I managed to cough out a few of these and I'm going to do one to Glen today.

^M01:00:33
[ Music ] 

^M01:00:45
I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road.  Searching in the sun for another overload.  I hear ya singing in the wire.  I can hear you through the whine. And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line.

^M01:01:31
[ Music ] 

^M01:01:38
I know I might need a small vacation. But it don't look like rain.  And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain.  I need you more than want you.  I want you for all time.  And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line.

^M01:02:26
[ Music ] 

^M01:03:06
I need you more than I want you. And I want you for all time.  And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line.

^M01:03:47
[ Music ] 

^M01:03:55
Hanging on the line. [Applause] Okay, thank you.

^M01:04:08
[ Applause ]

^M01:04:19
Thank you.  

>> Paul Williams: "And I need you more than want you and I want you for all time."  Esqueeze me, that's as good as it gets.

>> Dee Dee Myers: And we got to hear you accompany yourself on the piano, fabulous playing.

>> Jimmy Webb: Yeah, well.

^M01:04:39
[ Applause ]

^M01:04:42
>> Dee Dee Myers: We can see how you got going there in church in Oklahoma, Jimmy.

>> Jimmy Webb: Well, you know, sometimes it takes 20 minutes to pass the plate.  You know?

>> Dee Dee Myers: Right [laughter].

>> Jimmy Webb: And I would get bored, you know, and I would start doing these things, and I tell you that a committee of elderly ladies, to say senior.  I don't know how to be politically correct anymore.  I don't even know what I am.  I guess I'm -- I remember the shock of taking my father out and having a senior breakfast with him.  [Laughter] It cost us both $4.50, you know, and I was -- but anyway, these ladies came up to my father after church and they said, "Reverend Webb, your son is doing strange things today."

>> Dee Dee Myers: [Laughter] So anyway, we're glad you did and still doing them.  Anyway, we're here in Washington, so let's talk a little more politics.

>> Jimmy Webb: Yes.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Paul you had talked about the disparity in royalties, right, between the one for the recording and the one for the songwriters.  So the same stream would provide 14 times the income for the recording artist and the label than it does for the songwriter.  Today, Representative Collins introduced a bill or is about to introduce a bill that would help address some of the legal, you know, problems that have caused that disparity.

>> Paul Williams:  114(i), and the interesting thing, 114(i) is a bill to modify -- it's a Songwriter Equity Act.  Listen close and I'll explain the facts.  We go into court, it's against the rules for us to report what the other guy is getting.  This will change all that I'm betting.  That's the best I can do [laughter].  Here's basically what the deal is.

>> Jimmy Webb: That was pretty damn good.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Right.

>> Paul Williams: [Laughter] There is a provision, 114(i), and in the Copyright Act it basically states that when we go into court and to plead our case before the judge for, you know, royalty rate we cannot share the information to the -- or the judge cannot consider what our fellow muzoids are making.  In other words, we cannot say, "We're getting this much.  They're getting that much."  It's against the rules.  And this, you know, wonderful, wonderful change that's being suggested is a great first step to leveling the playing field for us in rate court.  If the consent decree is modified in a larger fashion perhaps we'll get to a place where we don't need a rate court, which would be amazing.  If we could actually do business like the rest of the world does business.  But this is a great first start, you know, and we're really grateful for this, you know, for this opportunity, you know.

>> Jimmy Webb: I think that I would just add that ASCAP is anxious to compete.  We would look forward to participating in a truly level marketplace where the playing field was level and we had a chance to offer what we have to offer on a fair footing, where the judge isn't deliberately blinded by certain aspects of the legislation and can't really even -- we have judges who feel sorry for us but there's nothing they can do for us.

>> Dee Dee Myers: The law is the law right?

>> Jimmy Webb: Yeah.

>> Dee Dee Myers: So we need to, as Maria Pallante says, it's time to take a look at the consent decree.  Right?

>> Jimmy Webb: Yes.

>> Dee Dee Myers: And see -- bring all the stakeholders in the business together to see if there's a way we can move forward, to reflect the right - these laws were last updated before there was an iPod, which changed the world.

>> Paul Williams: The consent decree is over 70 years old.  I'm over 70 years old.  You know, as our Register pointed out, you know, I'm trying to be flexible here and all.  It's wonderful that we have this kind of support, incidentally.  I have to just say this.  We have two gentlemen from our board sitting right here and ASCAP is blessed to have the most passionate, informed, aggressive board fighting for music creators' rights, and also Leeds Levy and Jim Kendrick are sitting right down front.  Would you stand up and let people see who you are because [applause] these are two great publishers?

^M01:09:01
[ Applause ]

^M01:09:08
>> Jimmy Webb: Yeah, that's what a publisher looks like [laughter].

>> Paul Williams: Yeah.  This is pro bono work that is probably as demanding -- probably more demanding than their own vastly successful businesses.  Because what they bring to the board room is true noblesse oblige.  They are absolutely -- they are warriors for the light and I wanted to introduce them.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Well thank you for doing that.  One of the things that ASCAP has done and again, Register Pallante referred to it, is collective, the whole idea of collective licensing, right?  ASCAP sort of invented it.

>> Paul Williams: Yes.

>> Dee Dee Myers: And why is that in the interest of songwriters to have collective -- and to the other stakeholders, to licensees and to consumers on the end of that?

>> Jimmy Webb: You take that.  

>> Paul Williams: What does collective licensing mean?

>> Dee Dee Myers: Yeah, right.

>> Paul Williams: Well, first of all, it's amazingly effective and the fact is that in this country basically what we do is just the performing rights, the performing royalty here.  But around the world rights are bundled, and while we're controlled in this country we're not in those areas around the world.  What I think, what I think is on the forefront of all of our thinking and all of our goal is to create something that makes it easier, and easier, and easier for the music user, and you just begin to move upstream from that.  

^M01:10:27
You move upstream from the music user.  He wants his music, he wants it the way he wants, it as often as he wants it, and that's our goal, too.  We don't want to do anything to stop the music.  That's the first thing to get out there.  We love the technology.  We love that as the technology has changed our audience has gotten larger, but, but between us and the people that love our music are people who are serving our music.  And they're selling advertising and, you know, we have a wonderful relationship with radio.  Radio gives you the music free.  Radio gives you the music free because you listen to their advertising.  They give us a little taste as we used to say in my misspent childhood [laughter], a little taste of the advertising money, and it makes it to the songwriter.  It's how we live our lives and all.  So the adjustment needs to be made in the way we do it.  Hopefully there will come a day when we can really make it easy for the music user, that  we can bundle rights for the servers where they can deal with a lot of the other ancillary rights around what we do, so.

>> Jimmy Webb: And as well for people who are making films and people who have projects in all -  who I get calls from all the time.  How do I clear all this music?  And it is daunting, and but it's really -- it's not our fault.  At this point it's really not our fault that it's so difficult to clear the rights.

>> Paul Williams: The great thing is that we have wonderful friends on both sides of the isle.  You know, we have a Copyright Office that is -- I mean, as you can tell, totally gets, you know, what is fair and it's -- and understands how important collective licensing is and wants to see it continue.  You know, copyright is as important today as it was when it was put into our Constitution by Hamilton.  Ask me what my middle name is.  [Laughter] Paul Hamilton Williams.

>> Dee Dee Myers: So it was no accident that you're sitting here.

>> Paul Williams: This is somebody's [inaudible].  Exactly.

>> Dee Dee Myers: It was foreordained.

>> Paul Williams: You know, we take ourselves a little too seriously [laughter] once in a while?  Maybe.  Maybe.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Yeah, but without songwriting being a viable profession there will be fewer songs, there will be less music, the whole foundation of the music ecosystem will begin to erode.

>> Paul Williams: And it's America's greatest product.  You go anywhere in the world, you go to France you hear French music and American music.  Japan, you'll hear Japanese music and American music.  It is America's greatest export, it is of the heart, it is -- as Jimmy says, it's truly American.  I mean it's born out of everything from our gospel background to -- and the amazing blending of genres right now.  I mean for somebody -- for a 73-year-old lyricist to wind up on an EBM album you don't [inaudible] entered into some really interesting times.

>> Dee Dee Myers: [Laughter] Yes indeed.  

>> Jimmy Webb: But to the -- as well to the same question, that erosion is taking place.  It's taking place as we sit here discussing it. It's taking place because -- let's say that there's -- at a conservative estimate is maybe there's 10 million kids out in the USA today, right now who want to be rock stars.  I'll bet you it's a 100 million, but let's just go with 10 million kids who want to be rock stars.  Even as we speak, that door of opportunity, the chance that they would ever get a chance like Paul and I got to actually walk into a publisher's office who would have the time, who would be able to deal with them, it's become -- the business has become so huge and so busy that it's almost squeezed out that little individual guy who has, you know, who has a few songs -- and I get letters saying, "How do I get started in the music business?"  I'm thinking how does he get started in the music business?  I know how I did it but that doesn't fit anymore, that doesn't work anymore.  We need to come up with a new model for youngsters to be able to get into this game.

>> Paul Williams: Actually ASCAP is addressing that and our friends in the NSAI, Nashville Songwriters Association International is another great organization that's doing the same thing.  We have a thing called ASCAP Expo, which once a year is a four-day event where you can hear panels with guys like Mr. Webb on it where you can sit down and listen to Quincy Jones answer questions about what he's looking for in a song.  The other thing is we have -- you know, the internet has allowed us, and these zeros and ones have allowed amazing access for the members of ASCAP and anybody can -- you can jump online and people that join ASCAP and are a part of ASCAP have total access to the records, to what's going on.  They can look at find out - oh my God I just had a performance in Walafumba, Switzerland or whatever.  You can follow your career, at least our part of it online.  So that's -- we're trying to be beyond just a collection agency and a huge part of what we do is advocacy and to become a real tool that young writers can use.

>> Dee Dee Myers: To help those young writers.

>> Jimmy Webb: I think it's important that what Paul's saying right now is we are really as opposed to being sort of dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age, which I think is a kind of caricature of ASCAP, we were really pioneers in -- 

>> Paul Williams: Licensing [inaudible].

>> Jimmy Webb: --15 years ago when Paul and I came on the board, the priority was let's get up, let's get automated, let's -- we developed technology for fingerprinting music so we could keep up with airplay on radio stations.  We actually developed that technology ourselves.  That's a story -- that's a behind the scenes story of ASCAP that a lot of people don't know but we have no issues with technology.  We've been using it.  We love using it.  It's actually enabled us to track our royalty statements with amazing finesse.  And it can only get better as time goes by.

>> Dee Dee Myers: And those are tools that are necessary for songwriters to try -- 

>> Jimmy Webb: Absolutely.

>> Dee Dee Myers: --alongside the businesses that profit from the music.  Right?

>> Jimmy Webb: Absolutely.

>> Dee Dee Myers: So it always comes back to the music.  So on that let's have one more song and then maybe take a couple questions from the audience when we come back.

>> Paul Williams: Want to go?

>> Jimmy Webb: [Laughter] You go ahead.

>> Paul Williams: Okay, just this once.  Just this once.

>> Jimmy Webb: I know you -- I knew you wanted to go [laughter].

>> Dee Dee Myers: You have to [inaudible].

>> Paul Williams: Well this is my favorite song.  Incidentally, I should mention some of my collaborators.  Some of the songs that are sung tonight I wrote with Roger Nichols. Charlie Fox and I wrote the "The Love Boat" theme together.  [Background Music] It's been a great career.  Once of the nice things that's happened to Mr. Webb and I, is when we started perform -- or started writing songs -- the performers around were the greats, you know.  So I had songs recorded by Elvis and Ella Fitzgerald, people like that, you know.  My favorite song of all times I wrote with Kenny Ascher.  Sung by the nicest guy I've ever seen in green. 
[ Music ]

Why are there so many songs about rainbows [applause]?  What's on the other side?  Well rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide.  Well so we've been told and some choose to believe it.  But I know they're wrong, wait and see.  'Cuz someday we will find it, rainbow connection.  The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

^M01:18:49
[ Music ]

^M01:18:55
Well who said that every wish would be heard and answered, if wished on the morning star?  Well somebody thought of that, someone believed it.  Look what it's done so far.  And what's so amazing that keeps us star gazing?  What do you think we might see?  Someday we will find it, the rainbow connection.  The lovers, the dreamers, and me.  And all of us under its spell, we know that it's probably magic.  Well have you been half asleep, have you heard voices?  'Cuz I've heard them calling my name.  And is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?  The voice might be one and the same.  But I've heard it too many times to ignore it, 'cuz it's something that we're all supposed to be.  Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.  The lovers, the dreamers, and me.  La da da dee da da dee. The lovers, the dreamers --

^M01:21:04
With the help of the Copyright Office, by God, we can do I'm thinking almost anything [laughter].

^M01:21:09
-- and me.

^M01:21:13
God bless you.  Thank you for all you do.

^M01:21:14
[ Applause ]

^M01:21:29
>> Jimmy Webb: This is a song that was recorded by Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.   I know you're thinking, "He's got to be pulling our leg."  But they actually recorded it and I was lucky enough to get a Grammy for it, for Best Country Song.  I remember when I told Waylon that I had gotten an award for this song, he said, "What for?"  And I said, "Best Country Song."  And he said, "Which country's that [laughter]?"  But, anyway, this is like a -- this is a song that I'm doing for ASCAP today, because this is our 100 year song and if you listen carefully you'll hear the story of a soul that, to put it bluntly, is reincarnated and lives at least a 100 years, and I think that ASCAP is like that soul.  We -- occasionally we have to molt, we have to leave the past behind and become something else in order to satisfy the demands of our mission and our mission is really simple.  We collect money and give it to deserving songwriters who've earned the right to that money.

^M01:22:58
[ Music ]

^M01:23:10
I was a highway man, along the coach roads I did ride.  With sword and a pistol by my side.  Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade.  Many a solider left his lifeblood on my blade.  They finally hung me in the spring of '25.  I am still alive.

^M01:23:45
[ Music ]

^M01:23:52
I was a sailor, and I was born upon the tide.  And with the sea I did abide.  I sailed a schooner around the Horn to Mexico.  I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow.  And when the yards gave way they say that I got killed.  I am living still.  Perhaps I always will. I don't know.  
I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide. Where steel and water did collide.  A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado, I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below.  They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound, but I am still around.  Seems like it all goes around and around.  Around and around, and around and around.  Oh and here we go.  
I'll fly a starship across the universe divide. And when I reach the other side, I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can.  Perhaps I may become a songwriter again.  Or I may simply be a single drop of rain.  But something will remain and I'll be back again.  I'll be back again.  Yes I will.  Oh and here we go again, and again, and again.  Oh yes we will and here we go, we'll all be back again.

^M01:27:17
[ Music ]

^M01:27:30
[ Applause ]

^M01:27:40
Thank you so much.  Thank you.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Great.

[ Multiple Speakers ] 

[Applause] Incredible.

>> Jimmy Webb: Oh, thanks. 

>> Dee Dee Myers: Is that like getting back together with old friends when you sing your songs that you've written?

>> Jimmy Webb: You know, there's nothing like songwriters and -- well, and publishers.  [Laughter] We're all friends, we're all friends.  We all love music and we all love hanging out and listening to music.  We don't do enough of it.

>> Paul Williams: And we're extremely grateful for the people who recorded our songs because if I was the only one that sang them [laughter] I'd be out walking horses right now.

>> Dee Dee Myers: You sounded pretty great to me.  We have a little time for a couple questions from the audience.  I'm not sure if there are mics.  There are.  So okay, just there's a couple of people with mics on either side.  So raise your hand if you have a question and we'll -- here's one right here.

>> Paul Williams: While we're waiting for the questions I think somebody should mention the Congressman from Georgia who has been such a good friend.  You know, I think [applause] [inaudible]  responsible for 114(i).  You know?  An amazing friend to songwriters.  And I have to tell you, people say, "What's it like to be a songwriter?  Do you ever get sort of wowed about the people you get to work with?"  Sometimes in the back of my head while I'm sitting talking to somebody I'll go, "Oh my God, I'm being interviewed by Dee Dee Myers [laughter]."

>> Jimmy Webb: [Applause] Me, too.

>> Dee Dee Myers: The honor is all mine, believe me.  

>> Audience Member: Good afternoon, aspiring songwriter/musician as well as a techie.  I'm an '80s baby so I'm in IT and I'm dealing with the technology side, you know, as well as the music side and I wanted to get you guys' opinion on YouTube.  You had talked about Pandora and in addressing the next generation and how they're consuming music.  YouTube is the number one destination right now.  So I wanted to, you know, ask how is ASCAP working with Google and YouTube or if they are --

[ Inaudible Speaker ]

-- because I've heard they've been doing a lot of like backdoor kind of stuff with the major labels and the major publishers of those labels.  So, I just wanted to get ASCAP's view on it.

^M01:30:01
>> Paul Williams: Well, we license YouTube.  I'm happy to say they have an ASCAP license and we love it when they play our music, but they also have a business arrangement with publishers which is that is their business.  Our business is that we have -- we do in fact have a license with them and I love going on there and hearing my songs [laughter] and everybody else's.  We love -- again, we love the technology.  I mean, we have a rule in my house during dinner I have to turn this off and put it away because I just am fascinated with everything that's available for me here and all.  I think that it's an amazing access to art, is YouTube.  It's an amazing access, you know, to the brilliant work that's been done.  I think that there are adjustments that need to be made in the way artists, and filmmakers, and songwriters, and publishers and all, copyright -- the people that control the copyrights and invest so heavily to be able to make sure that somebody else can write another song, make another movie and the like.  I think we have to examine the way that we compensate everybody involved in this.  But we don't want to do anything to slow it down and we don't want to see any fewer views or fewer listens, you know, on YouTube or anywhere else.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Yeah.

>> Jimmy Webb: I mean I think it would be fair to say that we had some fairly extensive negotiations with YouTube because, you know, a lot of startups, you know, they just start playing music.

>> Paul Williams: Yeah.

>> Jimmy Webb: They don't really think that they -- usually don't think that they need our permission or they pretend that they don't think that they need our permission [laughter].  But, you know, a lot of them just start playing music and so it's kind of like we're putting out fires.  You know, we have to come in and say, "Okay, look we really need to -- you're hurting our members by doing this and this and this."  So it wasn't -- our arrangement with YouTube didn't happen overnight and tomorrow there could be something else.  There could be something -- there's always something that we haven't thought of.

>> Dee Dee Myers: And YouTube is a great example of a technology that nobody envisioned when the rules of the road were created, and a great example of why we need to kind of take a look at the rules that govern music licensing and payment.  Another question from the audience?  

>> Jimmy Webb: Question?

>> Dee Dee Myers: You guys have been so -- oh, there you go.

>> Jimmy Webb: There's one.

>> Audience Member: A comment.  I'm Ray White from the Music Division, and I would just like to mention that as you all leave, in the display cases out in the Coolidge lobby you will see a couple dozen pieces of sheet music and each and every one of them is an original copyright registration deposit copy sent in to the copyright deposit --  the Copyright Office, which has now become part of the permanent collections of the Music Division.

>> Dee Dee Myers: They're written -- they're -- all the songs there, all the sheet music is written by the two of you.  So I highly encourage all of you to stop--

>> Jimmy Webb: I have to jump in on the end of that.  There was a time when that was a means of reproducing music in your home.  You brought up a piece of sheet music, took it home.

>> Paul Williams: You learned it.

>> Jimmy Webb: You learned it and then you could reproduce that music in your home.  Now we have this.

>> Paul Williams: Be careful [laughter].

>> Jimmy Webb: But I think my point is here is that I would beg you to understand is that the principle of the thing hasn't changed.  The song -- no matter what the device, is the principle of remunerating the songwriter and the publisher, it's a sound principle and creates a better product.  Please believe me on it. 

>> Dee Dee Myers: [Laughter] Well it allowed both of you to do what you do and we're all better off for it, so.  We have a question over there?

>> Audience Member: This is for Jimmy Webb.  This is not a copyright question but I wanted to ask about your collaboration with Richard Harris and how you started to work with him.  Why you chose like a non-singer to work with and just what it was like working with him.

>> Jimmy Webb: Okay, well you just knocked a chip off my shoulder so -- no, first of all, I kind of -- I don't know, it's not true that he was a non-singer, first of all.  He had just sung the lead role in Camelot, a Lerner and Loewe score, and he sung every darn song in the score and he sung it pretty good.

>> Paul Williams: [singing] I know it sounds a bit bizarre, but in Camelot.

>> Jimmy Webb: He did them all.  I mean I was working with a guy who I knew he had some singing ability, just to address part of your questions.  But to sort of answer you the way I think you really want to be answered, is Guinness had a lot to do with that [laughter].  Okay?  

>> Paul Williams: And I knew him a little bit and I can say that's an absolute fact [laughter].

>> Dee Dee Myers: Another question?  There we go.

>> Audience Member: Sorry, maybe this is a follow-up and maybe it's not relevant, but I was of the age where my first encounter with "MacArthur Park" was a Donna Summer version [laughter].  I didn't even know about the earlier version until later.  So I was wondering did you have any involvement with that or when -- did they approach you for the rights to that or how did that work?

>> Jimmy Webb: Okay.  That's a good question and I think I'm going to answer as briefly as I can.  But as songwriters and publishers we have one free shot where at the beginning of a copyright's life we have the pleasure and the privilege of granting a license to whomsoever we please.  After that, the horse is out of the barn.  So anybody can record your song, and--

>> Paul Williams: As long as they pay the appropriate royalties.

>> Jimmy Webb: Essentially, they can record it anyway they please [laughter], which sometimes is kind of the downside [laughter].  But I want to clarify the way I feel about the Donna Summer record.  That was my first number one record and her first number one record, and I wasn't per se a disco fan, but I was crazy about that record [laughter].  I loved it.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Okay.  Well we have time for just one more question if anybody has one.  Well we -- okay, there you go.

>> Audience Member: This is for Paul Williams.

>> Paul Williams: Sure.

>> I saw the film, Still Alive, that you mentioned the last time you were here. And in the beginning of the film, you're being interviewed by the maker of the film and you started to tell a story.  You were riding in a car as a young boy, your father was driving, he was drunk, it was raining and the guy stops you and wants to talk about interviews or something else and never let you finish the story [laughter].  What happened?

^M01:37:39
[ Laughter ]
^M01:37:46

>> Dee Dee Myers: [Applause] That's great.

>> Paul Williams: It was a classic alcoholic moment.  My dad was -- you know, this March 15th I'll celebrate 24 years of continuous sobriety.  [Applause] It's the best thing to ever happen.  Thank you.  The world's a safer place, trust me [laughter].  But I'm passionate about two things.  Intensely passionate about music creators' rights and I'm intensely passionate about recovering, making sure that people realize that there is hope for the hopeless and recovery works.  My dad never found sobriety, never found recovery and he would get very sentimental when he drank and decided every now and then we were going to have a father/son bonding moment.  He didn't say bonding then [laughter] but he'd say we'd have a father/son moment.  He was going to take me to a baseball game.  He was taking me to see the Cleveland Indians play baseball.  So we're driving through this horrible rain storm and it's raining sideways.  My dad's going [inaudible].  I'm going don't watch me dad, watch the road.  You know, I mean I can close my -- I'm 73, but I was maybe 11 at the time.  I can close my eyes and see the car going back and forth across the road, and that's about the point where the guy breaks in and says he wants to talk about my early performance.  I said, "You're interrupting this story about my father to ask me about talent shows, or whatever?"  The rest of the story is my dad's going, "We're going to see a professional game.  See the Cleveland Indians play baseball [laughter]."  And he drives through that rain -- that horrible storm to Cincinnati [laughter].  He drove through this horrible rain storm to the wrong city [laughter].  You know, Cleveland Indians don't play in Cincinnati.  So we got to the ball park, the ball park was empty and he goes, "Well we're really early.  We're going to get really good seats [laughter]."  He walked up and he looked at the, you know, the schedule on the ticket window and he realized what he'd done and he came back and he said something to me that was part of how I lived my life 'til I was 49.  He said, "We didn't get to the ball game but it's the thought that counts [laughter]."  So for a -- for 49 years I was a thoughty little guy.  I thought about doing a lot of things the right way but I didn't do them.  The last 23 years have given me the opportunity to try and do things the right way, to try and fix the things in my life that need fixing and try to fix the things in the way that I operate my life, you know, to have the honor of being on the ASCAP Board, to be a part of this process, to sit here right now with Mr. Webb and Ms. Myers.  You know, to have that kind of relationship with the Copyright Office that I do is beyond my wildest dreams.  Its proof that recovery works, and it's a great honor for all of us to be a part of this today with all of you.  Thank you for what you give us and for what you all do.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Yeah.

>> Paul Williams: Thank you.

>> Jimmy Webb: Thank you. [Applause] Thank you.  

>> Paul Williams: Dee Dee Myers, ladies and gentlemen.

>> Dee Dee Myers: Thank you.

>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.  Visit us at loc.gov.
^E01:40:44