ASCAP, BMI Demanding Payment For 30 Second Previews At Web Stores
from the are-they-insane? dept
It's been really stunning to see just how little dignity groups like ASCAP and BMI have in trying to suck every last penny out of any kind of musical usage, without ever once considering the damage they're actually doing to songwriters. It's as if the folks who run these groups have no concept of the actual impact of their crazy demands. In just the last few months, we've seen them try to squeeze more money out of music video games -- apparently not comprehending how much those games help promote musicians and sell more product. Then there was the fancy trick, where they claimed that websites that embedded music videos from YouTube had to pay even though they were already getting paid by YouTube directly. They just wanted to get paid twice. And remember back in the summer when they claimed that the ringtone playing on your phone required a public performance license on top of the royalties already paid? They have no shame.So, I guess it should come as no surprise at all to find out that their latest target is the 30 second previews that you hear on iTunes or Amazon.com. Yes, they're claiming that those 30 second previews should count as a public performance, and they want to get paid. Now. And they're asking Congress to make it happen -- because, as we've been learning recently, if you're inept at running an actual business, just go to the federal gov't and ask them to bail you out.
Rick Carnes, the head of the Songwriters Guild of America -- and who, we've been reliably informed, is a big fan of this site (that's sarcasm) after our previous articles debunking some of his more absurd claims -- explains the situation:
"Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I'm not kidding. People think we're making a fortune off the Web, but it's a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn't going to work."Talk about entitlement culture. Because Rick Carnes is unable to structure a smart business model, and thus makes pennies, everyone else needs to just cough up and pay? Yeah... that's reasonable. How about rather than trying to squeeze every penny out of everyone else (and then funnel it to the top artists instead of the smaller artists, anyway), you spend some time actually understanding basic business models -- such as ones where you convince someone that something's worth paying for, rather than just demanding Congress give you a cut of everything, in a way that harms the very musicians you claim to represent?
And, of course, as the article above notes, it's a flat-out lie that songwriters aren't getting paid for a lot of this stuff:
"These guys are afraid that the business model is shifting away from public performances to a model of private performances," [David] Potter [from the Digital Media Association (DiMA)] said. "This is a turf battle. They are saying, 'The songwriters aren't getting paid.' Baloney. Songwriters are getting paid. They're paid sync rights and (mechanical) rights. They aren't getting paid for the public performance in a download because there is no public performance in a download."This is a pure money grab by people who don't want to come up with a business model demanding free cash from those who did come up with a better business model. They're blaming everyone else for their own unwillingness to adapt.
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Filed Under: performance fees, previews, rick carnes, songwriters
Companies: ascap, bmi
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Oops...
This is absolutely ridiculous!! I don't know how many times that I've used the preview to listen to all the songs to make sure the one song I heard wasn't just a one-off track of the rest of the album.
They should be thanking iTunes (and the like) for this feature.
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Or..
I mean, think about it...it further limits a consumer's exposure to new music, so that seems to go along with their current trends.
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Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
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Dear Mr. Carnes...
I was just sitting here by my open sliding glass door, humming my favorite Squeeze tune and I noticed three deer nearby listening to me and tapping their little hoofies.
Ummmm....So -bill me-, asshat.
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Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Or you could go with my "swift slaughter of all lobbying groups and lobbyists, along with their immediate family members" option....
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I have the solution...
We'll see how that math works in a quarter or so.
Side thought: I'd love to see an actual arena setup where tickets are sold, and 30 second clips of songs are played for the assembled audience. Just to show how ridiculous this all is...
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Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
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guys like this
Remember the guy who said "I don't take a piss if someone's not paying for it?" (while he goes to the bathroom at one point in the program).
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Charge for window shopping a product that is leased, not purchased, and where most everything "browsed" will be unsatisfactory for "take-home" or "lease-at-home" purposes.
You know what... I think I'd rather just go try a strip club.
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I'm suprised AC hasn't showed up yet
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Re: I have the solution...
Nice to meet my larger anonymous mammalian counterpart....
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Rick is a skank
So you wrote, what? Thirty seconds of a song?
Now I see why he's pissed.
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Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Well, my taste for irony sort of requires that the lobbyists be slaughtered in some way utilizing whatever they are lobbying for. Examples:
1. Cigarette lobbyists: Well, the obvious punishment is to make them smoke constantly until they die of nicotine poisoning, but I've never been a fan of the obvious. Instead they are put on public display, naked, and children who have been arrested or otherwise caught smoking underage will be required to put out lit cigarettes and cigars on the lobbyists exposed skin until they die. Doublely(sp?) useful as a deterrent to keep underage kids from smoking!
2. Gun lobbyists: They have their achiles tendons sliced down the middle, forcing them to sort of crawl around on all fours around a special "game park" that is home to all kinds of animals with mounted weaponry that randomly fires for a little HUMAN HUNTING!!! These animal hunters could include the simple (You think a bear is dangerous now? How about one in chain mail with wolverine-type claw extensions?), to the more complicated (bunnies attached to mini helicopter aparati and mounted machine guns, controlled by gamers from home), to the necessarily hysterical (Sharks with fricken laserbeams attached to their heads).
3. Entertainment lobbyists: How does the televised pumping of Britney Spears, Cher, Justin Timberlake, or Gwar directly into the eardrums of lobbyists at the kind of decibals that will shatter a human skull sound?
Now...THOSE are pubic performances, my friends.
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Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
We'll need a HUGE bong....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Well, see you have these projectile things called guns, and there are lobbyists on both sides of the debate, pro-gun ownership and anti-gun ownership. Since I stated that ALL lobbyists are getting the treatmen, both sides go into the game park for Human Hunting fun.
Sorry, I'm sure you were itching for a political fight there, but that wasn't an attempt to pick on either side.
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Consumer Lobby..... great idea..... I'm going to patent it ;)
Since lobbying is all about the money, we should stand up and make ourselves heard by creating an actual Consumer Lobbying group and buying our own laws. If consumers united and each donated a dollar a year, we would have some significant 'seed' money to start bribing, er, lobbying our government officials.
There are a lot more of us (consumers) than there are of them (RIAA, MPAA, etc), even though they appear to have deeper pockets, that's only due to us buying their products in the first place. Imagine being able to 'donate' .05 for each iTunes purchase and have it go to 'fighting the power', something at checkout, "Would you like to help fund consumer rights organization in an attempt to 'buy back' our culture from the evil MAFIA overlords by contributing .05 per song purchased?" (but worded a little better).
I think I need to patent this idea (collecting money from consumers and buying laws that favor consumers over existing industry monopolies), then I can start suing when someone actually takes the idea and runs with it (this is the new American way, right? Idea, do nothing, Sue, Profit.
Just kidding (or am I????)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Now, I may be in the minority here, but even though I detest Britney Spears music, I still think the woman is so doable. And when I saw the line "pumping of..." All my brain saw was pumping Britney Spears, and I got so freaking excitied...Then I saw the word Cher. *shudder*. Thanks for bringing me up, and then back down, DH.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Not itching for a fight, was worried suddenly that you and I had diverging opinions about such a divisive subject. (Generally, you're right there with the comments I'm thinking--only with better witticisms.)
Thanx for the clarify.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
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Just wondering...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Since we already know they are void of all humanity and in all likeliness are ROBOTS, maybe a little paradox would cause their circuits to overload & heads to explode. Such as:
What if we sent in lobbyists to lobby against lobbyists?
And if their heads didn't explode, wouldn't that at least force them to lobby against our lobbyists which would start a never ending circle(redundant?) of counter-lobbying?
Then vwalla! no more lobbying for special interests.
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Re: Consumer Lobby..... great idea..... I'm going to patent it ;)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Which would just be...the status quo. You don't think all lobbyists are lobbying for the same thing, do you?
A better idea would be to make sweeping tax cuts to deprive politicians of the means to meddle. My favorite scenario is one in which personal federal income taxes have been abolished -- all funds have to come directly from state budgets. That would really be fun to watch as bureaucrats squared off against bureaucrats in a true bloodbath.
Or I could see the merits to going DH's path and just shoot the bastards. Anarchy looks better all the time...
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"Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I'm not kidding. People think we're making a fortune off the Web, but it's a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn't going to work."
For the last ten years I have made it a point never to buy a brand-new music CD, because of jerks like you who claim that you are speaking on behalf of the entire music industry. Used music CD = no royalties for you.
I buy MP3s from Amazon and Itunes because the price is reasonable for me as a consumer. Specifically, the ability to hear that 30-second snippet means that I don't have to waste money on a song that sucks rotten eggs. Take that listening privilege away and I won't buy one 99 cent MP3 until I've had a chance to first download a pirated copy and listen to it. You and your friends at the MPAA and the RIAA are losing the war by alienating the dwindling ranks of paying customers.
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Now...THOSE are pubic performances, my friends.
In any case...as a musician, I personally would support an alternative to the current system of royalty collection societies. Could not some smart entrepreneur build a more equitable and efficient system that doesn't sound like extortion? A system where, oh instead if making people pay to listen or venues to pay to play, the public has an incentive to use and promote music? Insights? Even from the annoying and frustrating AC?
You know the one I mean
el raybonious
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m'kay
I like to try before they buy, and the 30 second preview is a very reasonable compromise between letting me hear the song before hand, and still have a good reason to buy (for the other 3 minutes of music)
so, if they get rid of these previews, I will leave your legit site, go to the pirate sites, download the full album and listen to it a few times; then you expect me to go back to your site and pay for something I already have? Is that the plan?
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Re: Consumer Lobby..... great idea..... I'm going to patent it ;)
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Re: Or..
When sites stop offering previews, what will occur is people will try before you buy via P2P, through Torrent Sites, or via anonymous P2P networks (ANts P2P, RShare, Freenet, I2P, GNUnet and Entropy) .... then since they have the song already, they forget to go buy the song at the music site.
As I have said before, this is a good thing....
It causes greater losses at the record labels as people migrate to alternate sources for music (P2P, anon P2P, new artists, CC, etc). This forces the labels to seek out other new revenue streams. Its a never ending cycle until a Catastrophic failure occurs. In this case it will be caused by the labels themselves.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Another brick in the wall (oops, I hope they do not come to me charging for the quote...)
Second, I meant it to be what if we sent lobbyists to the lobbyists to lobby to them about lobbying, or something along that line. I am pretty sure no one does this yet, but its whatever.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Or..
Perfect Example
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Re: Now...THOSE are pubic performances, my friends.
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Re: m'kay
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Re: Re: Now...THOSE are pubic performances, my friends.
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I see both sides
On the other hand, if the song is hot, people will buy it. Restaurants, Retail stores, and other businesses all give customers "previews" before they buy. I just had a piece of bourbon chicken that they offered me...a free sample, and since I enjoyed it, I bought a whole plate. But I can't blame ASCAP and BMI for trying though. I continue to collect royalty checks off of television placements I've had thus far. :-)
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game music
I really dug the music in the new game demo WET, so off to amazon I went. I checked out the preview clips (thought they where to short) but since I had heard a lot more in the game I downloaded the CD.
The label got paid (probable multiple times already for the same music. The band got paid for the music for the game, they got paid by me for buying the music.. .Maybe if I buy the game I will get to pay everybody again for the same music in a less useful format, or maybe they will give it to me again on the DVD (that would be nice).
WTF is the problem now the want to get paid for 30 second clip I listened to make sure it was the same track? Great dose not even begin to describe this mentality.
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How is it a performance?
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Re:
Classic and much-loved TV shows aren't available on DVD because of the greed of ASCAP, BMI and the record labels, who want to squeeze every last penny out of every second of music played in the background. Some of this music can't be edited out. It's part of what made those shows unique and meaningful, so the rights-holders to the TV shows are giving up and walking away after protracted and expensive legal battles with the trifecta of music-industry bimbos whose greed is holding an entire industry hostage, keeping back innovation and killing new streams of revenue. They don't just want a share of the pie - the bimbos want it all, killing the profit margins for everyone involved in bringing these projects to DVD.
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I have a solution...
Idiots.
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Apple should go nuclear
It's always so amusing to see these organizations do these things under the mistaken impression that they have some sort of leverage. They don't, not with Apple/Itunes.
Seriously. I think that is the best position to take with these unreasonable and clueless dinosaurs of the business. Just give them whatever they want and watch them squirm as they realize the truth - THEY DID IT TO THEMSELVES.
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Re: Re: Or..
30 seconds isn't enough either. If they wanted, they could just play the first 30 seconds, make a few seconds empty noise, and whats left of the song's lead in just isn't enough to tell if its worth buying.
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Re: I see both sides
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Think Positive!
If organizations like the ASCAP are trying to squeeze pennies out of a 30 second music clip, then we are winning and have backed them into a corner. If these businesses were making a decent profit, then why bother with this?
First rule of business is fry the bigger fish, and 30 second clips are small fish. Their business is in a death rattle and they are just thrashing around. But don't worry, it'll soon die.
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The future
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Public performance
Now...THOSE are pubic performances, my friends.
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Join your friends at the RIAA.
in hell!
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Re: I see both sides
In every other field, promotion does not necessarily mean sales. What makes your field special?
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Re: Apple should go nuclear
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Re: Or..
What you call curent trend, already happened since 50s or before and its called payola. Before you think "but we had pink floyd before and the beatles", yes they decided by some reason pay payola to them at the time and now they decided to pay to those bands. Same thing just different bands.
But, yes limiting the user exposure to new music may be the reason behind that. But not in a way you said, with that they will not force people to buy what they dont want, but making even harder to people find other bands and songs by the samples (a hard thing because people dont usually search on internet about music [payola says "this is all that is happening in music industry, pick what you want, if you want something."])
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