Music Royalties At All Time Highs

from the that-can't-be-good-for-the-RIAA dept

Whenever I get involved in discussions about online music and suggest that musicians don't need to make their money on CD sales (in most cases, they don't already - they make their money on live performances) people often bring up the question of how will songwriters make their money. After all, the song writers just pen the songs, but don't perform them. Well, it seems that maybe they won't have such a problem as song writing royalties from performance rights are at an all time high despite all the troubles the recording industry is supposedly in. That's because they do receive royalties from public performances of the music - and those aren't decreasing at all. Of course, the song writers are still complaining about how they're not making as much money as they used to, as they're making less from CD royalties. Well, that's what happens when business models change. Most people who create one thing don't get to sit back and collect cash for it for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, the article includes a quote that shows just how the industry views the internet. It's not about being a communications mechanism that lets everyone communicate back and forth. No, they see it as a one way medium to force content on folks who will pay them for it: "The Internet has not been able to grow as other broadcast venues of entertainment have grown." That's because it's not a broadcast venue. The faster the industry realizes this, the faster they'll be able to get past all the troubles they're having.