Hollywood Reporter – Jan 29, 2008:
Music publishers, the record labels and digital music distribution outlets began a three-way legal wrestling match Monday over just how much songwriters and the publishing houses should get paid for digitally delivered music.
The case before a panel of copyright judges is different from the usual squabbles over money that pit the major record labels against new-media companies because it also features a family fight between the music publishers and songwriters and the rest of the music industry.
At issue is the so-called “mechanical royalty” — payments made for copies of sound recordings, including those made by digital means, to songwriters and publishers.
In a twist for royalty fights, such new-media players as Yahoo, Apple and Napster and major record labels agree with one another and want the royalty they pay to the publishers and songwriters to be lowered.
According to papers filed by the RIAA at the Copyright Royalty Board, the labels want the board to reduce the rate to 8% of wholesale revenue.
New-media companies want the rate to go even lower, contending that it should disappear when music is digitally streamed.
RIAA – Bend over like a songwriter
Damn it’s getting harder and harder to stay in love with music.
I actually like this development, this shows clearly that RIAA cares for no one but themselves, the fact that so far it had only gone after users gave a false sense of security to other industry workers, this proves to them they are just as expendable in RIAA eyes. Hopefully this will make everyone unite under a single front against them.
Key part of the article not shown above:
“Record companies are suffering a contraction of their business at a time when music publisher revenues and margins have increased markedly,” the trade group wrote. “While record companies have been forced to drastically cut costs and employees, music publisher catalogs have increased in value due to steadily rising mechanical royalty rates and alternative revenue streams made possible, but not enjoyed, by record companies.”
Internet is killing the archaic record companies. Let’s hope the trend continues.
Music is just like sex! Some people have to pay for it, Most of us get it for free. 🙂
The songwriters and performers should get more royalties, not less.
As long as the RIAA has congress in their pocket, this won’t happen.
This should be an open and shut issue.
The major record labels want to halve the royalties paid to songwriters and publishers. Why?
This is actually an offensive move by the labels against artists who write and publish their own works and place them on the internet. This new trend is being established by bands such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, not to mention numerous Indie artists.
The main appeal the major labels now offer to artists is financial backing in exchange for an onerous, restrictive contract. Most artists hate their label for good reasons.
Now, if you have a decent Mac laptop with ProTools you can make professional quality music at an affordable price without the labels. The only problem is, how do you distribute it?
Online, through Itunes, Yahoo, etc.
The labels cannot afford this end run around them, so they are demanding a new royalty structure which forces these artists to continue coming to the labels for funding.
Another Gift to Music Lovers Everywhere courtesy of the RIAA!
Oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy !!
Chaos amongst the entitled !! Does a marxist good to see…anyone see the marxist ..yet ?
It’s time to move on to a new system. Recently it occured to me how silly it is for artists to expect to get payed everytime their song is played. Then when you add in the corruption of the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI and the various distribution methods you really see how ridiculous the situation is. I manage a bar, for the privilege of having a jukebox we pay ASCAP 1100$ a year and BMI 1200$. Now lets think about this, they in no way keep track of what songs are played, in fact they have no clue what artists are even in our jukeboxes. We have one of those internet jukeboxes that plays thousands of songs and one old fashioned juke box that plays singles. How to do they figure out where the money should go. The whole thing is one giant fucking joke. I’m sure the artists see none of the money that is collected from venues. I support artists, but it’s really time for them to move on from thinking every time a song gets played on radio or in a juke box they should get money. It’s time for them to take business into there own hands and focus on self distribution, movie/advertising rights, and the biggest nut touring. Make your own labels distribute DRM free songs yourself. Artists like Radiohead and Trent Reznor have caught on to the future of the music industry, it’s time to leave the labels and just go DIY. Just cut them out of the picture and let all the online distributors and the RIAA fight over nothing, take the power away from them.
#8 said:
>Now, if you have a decent Mac laptop with ProTools you
>can make professional quality music at an affordable
>price without the labels. The only problem is, how do
>you distribute it?
You can make a professional sounding recording on a PC too and it will cost less.
It won’t be long before Steve “iJerk” Jobs want’s his cut of all music that was produced on a Mac.
What I like to do for my own amusement is take cheesy MIDI files and turn them into something worth listening too. For that one needs an audio card like Creative Audigy which supports Sound Fonts, MIDI editing software like Cakewalk and perhaps Studio Audio software like Adobe Audition (formally Cool Edit) for multi-track and excellent studio mastering.
Sound Fonts are sampled musical instruments which can be loaded into your MIDI bank to replace the cheesy default instruments – like a Marshall overdriven Fender guitar.
I know you end up with a Karaoke version of the song but its fun to play with on those days your not busy bitching about the world on DU. 🙂
Cheers
I hope that songwriters and artists are represented in this conversation with the copyright royalty board.
God knows that consumers and internet radio were (tongue in cheek) “well represented”.
Moral of the story: buy independent music. Go to your local stores. buy from local bands. Forget online. The revolution is dead.
#2 – Damn it’s getting harder and harder to stay in love with music.
Why?
Music doesn’t even have anything to do with what the RIAA does.
#4 – Internet is killing the archaic record companies. Let’s hope the trend continues.
You know, there is a downside… The Internet, and in particular, compressed audio formats, are killing the quality of recordings… Combined with the death of the album, music is turning into far more of a disposable commodity than it has ever been before.
The shame is that there are many thousands of outstanding artists (both new and veteran) creating great music, but as a culture we are relegating it to being used as background sound in the malls where we buy our iPods… not that it matters that much since the lack of any dynamic range in the recording makes it all sound like white noise anyway.
#10 – Recently it occured to me how silly it is for artists to expect to get payed everytime their song is played.
Why is it silly for artists to get paid?
Why do you not know how to spell paid?
#12, THIZ_HO, those Audigy cards are great. There’s a lot of software out there, cakewalk is pretty good. How about an Audigy plug-in card for your notebook too, and some portable cube surround speakers as well?
Movies play much better with good sound, screw the hotel room TV. It’s a good thing most hotel rooms are well soundproofed!
#17 BubbaRay “those Audigy cards are great”
I still have the Audigy 1! I am waiting for it to crap out or someone tell me why Audigy 4 is so much better! Which do you have?
What do Apple Mac people do? Just keep what they have?
I didn’t know Audigy has a PC card for notebooks – neat.
I do have a 120g notebook HDD USB that I ripped a lot of DVDs onto. DVD shrink is great for that.
Cheers
#15 it stupid for artist to expect to get paid every time there is song is played for a simple reason. The system is fucked and they is no way to keep track of it. Not to mention it’s a two way relationship, they want radio airplay to sell records and tickets. It’s not like they are not getting any benefit out of it. It’s a two way relationship. Yes the RIAA and publishing companies are evil, everyone knows that including the 1000’s of artist that blindly keep signing these record deals. I have little sympathy for people who knowingly enter contracts in which they know they are getting screwed. There are plenty of independent labels that are getting as powerful as the majors, Merge being the best example. They get blinded by the thoughts of fame and money, which is really stupid because even major acts get screwed. There are plenty of alternatives out there.
This is ultimately destructive to the record/new media companies. When music was on LP, 8-tracks, or cassette tapes the barrier to entry in music distribution was very high. Now, with online distribution, the barriers are insignificant.
This is similar to the current Hollywood writers strike, and soon to come actors strike. These are mostly rich people who could jump to new distro channels or make their own entirely.
Record companies don’t make music, they produce CDs. If their balance sheets bleed red very of the musicians they shaft will be sad.
#19 – #15 it stupid for artist to expect to get paid every time there is song is played for a simple reason. The system is fucked and they is no way to keep track of it. Not to mention it’s a two way relationship, they want radio airplay to sell records and tickets. It’s not like they are not getting any benefit out of it. It’s a two way relationship.
As long as the outlets who play the artist’s music are using the music to sell advertising, the artist’s who created the music that draws the listener moths to the marketing flame should see a cut. Further, evil they may be, but Clearchannel has the technology to know who should get paid what.
But I do think there should be no fees associated to non-profit operations on radio and web, and I think that there is validity to your take on the issue as well.
#21 seriously think of the accounting. Imagine keeping track of every song played on every radio station around the world, add to that every jukebox in the world, now add to that every for profit online entity. It will never work. And hears the kicker I don’t think artists really care about royalties from airplay. Maybe some of the huge songwritters do, but the average artist would just be happy someone is playing their music. The industry is ass backward and based on a system that was setup 50-60 years ago. Heres the classic example, do you really think someone should still own the rights to “Happy Birthday”, should they really have forced the Girl Scouts of America to only sing public domain songs. Massive amounts of the culture of the past 80 years is all locked up and owned by corporations.
The song remains the same–despite the pimps and parasites who constitute the Music Industry and hustle product.
#22 – Imagine keeping track of every song played on every radio station around the world, add to that every jukebox in the world,
Dude… Clearchannel owns 90% of the media outlets. They only have to track 40 songs a week. And only in this country, to boot.
Seriously, it’s all programmed. They know what songs they are playing next week and can spit it all out into a database.
Fergie… 1,945,234 plays
50 Cent… 1,233,987 plays
Hall & Oats… 3 plays
Good Indie Rock… 0 plays
And hears the kicker I don’t think artists really care about royalties from airplay. Maybe some of the huge songwritters do, but the average artist would just be happy someone is playing their music.
On the contrary. A little known fact about musicians is that just like you and I, they get married, have kids, buy houses, pay bills, and plan for retirement. The artist may not consider airplay royalties as important as performance revenues or album sales, but as long as they pay for goods and services, they’ll care about what is owed them.
The industry is ass backward and based on a system that was setup 50-60 years ago. Heres the classic example, do you really think someone should still own the rights to “Happy Birthday”
Don’t confuse the issue. Of course copyright law is maddeningly insane. Of course something needs to be done. Of course Disney is evil. Yes, Lawrence Lessig should run for President.
But we are talking about artists being ensured of reaping their due benefit from work they are creating now.
I think we probably agree on a lot… but not on this royalty issue. And it probably wouldn’t be that important, except that working musicians, on average, make less than 50K a year. They are definitely working class and deserving of the money due them.
This is why I will no longer be replying to you. Stop making crap up.
Clear channel owns somewhere around 10% % of US radio stations. There are approximately 12,500 radio stations in the us and CC owns approximately 1100.
Top 40 is just the name of the format, they play way more then just 40 songs a week.
Stop throwing made up numbers around.
#25 – This is why I will no longer be replying to you. Stop making crap up.
So I was wrong. I looked it up and lo and
behold, what was I thinking?…
I had intended to be superfluous on purpose… because in blogland, entertaining is more valuable (and instructive) than accuracy, but I had no idea how off the mark I was.
I guess it only seems like they own everything because Clear Channel, Cumulus, Citadel, Infinity, American Family Association, Entercom, (see? I really did look it up) etc., all sound exactly the same. (except AFA, which plays Christian “so called” music, which is actually the only genre even less interesting that Adult Contemporary)
In fact, I can’t recall the last time I’ve heard, in any market, a station that wasn’t programmed, market tested, homogenized, sanitized, and essentially play the same 40 goddamn Dave Mathews or Alicia Keyes songs over and fucking over until you wanted to kill a puppy.
I got a figure wrong. Way wrong. I admit it. Sue me…
But my point is still right. These guys already know what they are playing. It’s canned and computerized. Any modern radio station can tell you what they played on Jan 4th, 2007 at 3:13 AM as easily as what they are playing this minute… and many can tell you what they’ll play next Thursday.
There is no reason why artists should not be able to be paid that can be explained by saying it is technically infeasible.
And by the way… the top 20 companies own not much more than 20 percent of all domestic radio stations. So… Who owns the rest and what do they play? I can’t name a single indy station in my market (and I live in the 13th largest American city) or in my previous home (a top 50 media market) or in my prior home (the 3rd largest city in America)
Are they all little AM farm stations still doing grain reports after all these years?
Clear Channel owns everything that matters, and they kill the very life out of all of it.
DISCLAIMER: I gave up on radio several years ago when I realized that The Internet allowed me to bypass the Clear Channel Culture Homogenization Engine(c).
Top 40 is just the name of the format, they play way more then just 40 songs a week.
Yea… We all know that Wolfman… It’s pretty common knowledge. Doesn’t change the fact that the restrictively limited palette of a commercial safe middle of the road pablum offered up on American radio is the least interesting, least imaginative, least provocative music one can hear. And it feels like 40 songs… not a single ditty more.
On the remarkably off chance that anyone is reading this, can I get an Amen on that one last point?
I hear more more compelling music when NPR does a 10 minute feature on Brazilian street musicians than I can hear on a corporate radio station in a week.
Now I know you are all hot and bothered that I dared suggest incorrectly that Clear Channel owns 90% of everything and I doubt that I’ll ever be able to recover from the shame of exaggerating the number by 78%… To err is human after all, and blog readers are something other human I guess…
But what about my highly accurate and indisputable point that musicians actually do require an income like the rest of us…
Or are you under the impression that they live off happiness and sunshine?