Musicians Realize They Need Their Own Lobbying Group
from the but-will-it-be-more-of-the-same? dept
Many people realized long ago, that contrary to what the RIAA (and the politicians it supports) states, the RIAA is not representing the interests of "the music industry," but rather the interests of a few big record labels. Those interests are often directly at odds with the actual musicians. It's almost amazing it's taken this long, but a bunch of musicians, including Radiohead, are now forming their own lobbying/bargaining group, called the Featured Artists' Coalition. One of the goals, actually, is to put pressure on the record labels to allow the musicians to retain the copyright on their music, rather than handing it over to the labels. At the very least, it ought to be interesting to see the two of them fight this out. Though, my fear is that this new group really just promotes more of the same, and doesn't focus on new business model opportunities, but again looks for ways to "protect" rather than to innovate.
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Filed Under: featured artists coalition, lobbying, lobbyists, musicians, radiohead
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The BPI not the RIAA
In any case its interesting that a lot of the more aggressive attempts to reform the industry, particularly at EMI (bought out by Private Equity firm Terra Firma) have resulted in a serious backlash from artists.
As Mike notes, lobbying groups like this might be destructive for big music in the long term, but the quote from the BPI hints that industry insiders aren't too concerned for how much power this coalition might wield.
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Re: The BPI not the RIAA
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Re: Re: The BPI not the RIAA
All of this has the same feeling as the writers strike in the US a while back; more negotiating power to the artists is really only a good thing if they have the business savvy make the right decisions. Many don't understand the way things are changing any more then the labels.
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As you stated, their first goal is to get their copyrights back. Without those, it would be impossible for them to create any innovative modern business model without getting the music industry's prior permission.
And this will be very interesting because the music industry's current argument is that they're in it for the artist. How are they going to spin that argument when it is the artist who wants his copyright back? Well, they won't spin it, they'll just dump a boat load of cash on Congress, that's for sure.
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Who wants to bet a version of the above will happen?
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Duh, it's RIAA
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well YEAH
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Re: well YEAH
STICK IT TO THE MAN
Step 1: Make sure the man is not sticking it to you
Step 2: .....
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Duh, it's RIAA
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musicians will rule
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Re: musicians will rule
Yes, it CAN be worse than Bush. It could have been Gore.
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Re: Re: musicians will rule
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Re: Re: musicians will rule
To point: thanks to the internet, no artist needs a record label these days. Those guys are the idiots my friend...nothing but a bunch of legalized gangsters pushing awful music.
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From worse... to bad?
Future: "This is the FAC and we've noticed you're sharing files. We're suing you. Bend over, give us $20,000 per song, and all will be well."
From the frying pan, into the fire.
Of course, this is just speculation, but why do I get the notion this new formation is about taking over RIAA's position such that the lawsuits are in favor of the musician, rather than the recording industry?
Call me pessimistic, but you can thank Metallica for just how far a musician will go to retain what they feel is theirs, financially.
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Collective bargaining power for musicians is important if you want to level the playing field between musicians and the labels. Copyright czar? Check. Sonny Bono? Check. Make webcasting prohibitive? Check. And so forth. The RIAA (which is starting to develop its own agenda ahead of the labels themselves) and its sister organization, the MPAA, all have the kind of political access they need to make a business model succeed or fail, by hook or by crook. The labels have all of the political power, and the musicians none -- they don't have an organization which has the ear (and pocketbooks) of Congresscritters.
While ultimately this might go to a Bad Place (consider unions), workers never go after collective bargaining power without being completely exploited first. Only after political equilibrium is established will the power of a given business model become self-evident AND successful.
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isnt it time
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Your brain on Marijuana
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F.A.G.
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In that sense, I'm not sure what laws the musicians' lobby might push for--that it should be illegal for a label to own a copyright? That artists should get a statutorily determined percent of revenues? This would be strange since these are business issues, not legislative issues. Granted, musicians usually have little leverage in business negotiations and therefore get screwed, but this seems to be outside the purview of Congress/Parliament. Of course, there are many artists who are dying to sell their copyrights to labels in exchange for the possibility of promotion/exposure. Should they be legally barred from doing so?
If it's true that sale of copyright and similar issues are outside the realm of legislation, then the extent that a musicians' group might have power would only be as a union of sorts. If so, their major recourse option would be that of all unions: going on strike. This is an absurd consequence for any creative person and only conjures images of a certain South Park episode.
In what positive ways do people see this situation developing?
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