Recording Industry Might Just Keep Webcast Royalties
from the don't-want-'em? dept
While the recording industry pushed so hard for compulsory licensing fees for radio webcasts and so hard against compulsory licensing for downloads (realizing, of course, they can sell downloads, but can't sell webcasts), it turns out that the fine print says that SoundExchange, the supposedly not-for-profit "affiliate" of the RIAA gets to keep any of the unclaimed royalties from the compulsory licenses. Seems like a pretty good deal for the RIAA. They collect the fees, and if no one steps up, they keep the fees. Whatever happened to all that talk about "doing what's best for the musicians?" It seems like you could make a bigger case that this is actual "theft" than downloading a song.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
SoundExchange Collections
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: SoundExchange Collections
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: SoundExchange Collections
After ten minutes on both RIAA and BMI sites, i can find no mention of that, so maybe i was quite wrong.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: SoundExchange Collections
Final result: loads of extra income for the lawyer (or in this case the RIAA), and no laws broken. Nice system, huh? :-)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]