[BC] Re: CD rippers

[Tom Taggart]

Al:

As you have discovered, this ain't going to be easy. Sounds like that you are concerned with music that comes from this side of the pond, not a 1975 recording of the "Slovakian Army Chorus sings Gershwin."  So my first stop would be ASCAP and BMI:

1. I just threw out a thick bound volume from ASCAP titled "1981 Artists and Composers" or something like that.  Since they are the "American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers" I suspect that if you call them, you might find that they have a database that lists a lot of this information.

2.  We have several European visitors to our lists. Coming to mind Goran Thomas in Croatia, Andy (name escapes me) in Ireland, and, in the past Stavros (Boulitakis?) in Greece.
While they may not get into this area at their stations, they probably can find someone who does this regularly.  I'm sure there are other databases that have this information.

3. As to changing publishers, if I play my 1970's era disk of "Buddy Miles--Thats the Way Life Is"/Buddy Miles Music/ASCAP and it turns out that the publisher has changed hands four times since, welll..that's the way it is folks! 
Note that most recent CD's no longer carry even the ASCAP or BMI designation.  Nor do they list the music publisher any more. Somehow both ASCAP and BMI can figure out who gets the checks when we send in our logs to these folks.  
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