UMG Finds Perfect Biz Model: Cheat Artists, Then, If Caught, Demand Insurance Company Pay Instead
from the wow dept
The sheer chutzpah of Universal Music is really quite stunning. As you may recall, in 2009, it came out that the major record labels had been screwing over musicians in Canada with a bit of sleight of hand called "exploit now, pay later if at all." The way it worked was that labels would put old works on compilations without getting artists' permission, then put the artists' names on a "pending" list, which was supposed to mean that payment to those artists was "pending." Except the pending lists were never touched and the royalties were never paid. Labels not paying artists royalties is a pretty common issue, but here they weren't even getting any credit at all. Pretty sneaky. Realizing they had been caught red handed, the labels "settled" by agreeing to pay the $45 million in royalties owed.However, it turns out that Universal Music Group actually seems to think that its insurance company should be paying the $14.4 million it owes (UMG's share of the $45 million). It's now suing its insurance company for refusing to pay. If you think about it for a second, you realize just how insane this claim is. Basically, Universal Music is claiming that it can simply not pay any royalties at all, then wait to get sued... and if it loses and has to pay, it believes its insurance company has to foot the bill. Now there's a business model!
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
Filed Under: canada, cheating, copyright, insurance, scams
Companies: universal music
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
And you say that the copyright industry cannot come up with innovative business models.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It might cover negligence - but no insurance company in the world will ever cover deliberate wrongdoing - and this looks pretty deliberate to me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
No new Artist needs to sign with any of these bloodsuckers anymore.You can do it all on your own with the NET and not have to lose your income.Your Musical Act will receive 100% of the money as opposed to whatever a bigwig thorwsd to you and what they throw is shit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
...How's my MAFIAA methodology going?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jammie Thomas
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Jammie Thomas
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Jammie Thomas
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Jammie Thomas
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Jammie Thomas
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Jammie Thomas
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
UMG's exec's waddle
AC Said: "The policy is a "conduct of business" policy, and might actually really cover this sort of thing."
If the policy was worded to cover this kind of extortion, they would have just paid. I doubt the non-payment of royalties until sued was in that contract.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
UMG
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Who should pay what?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Remember though, unless you only rip off Universal, instead of everyone- independents etc, you're a greedy hypocritical douche.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I wonder if such a scam would make the label's site 'dedicated to theft of property'?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Not really, a demon with a thousand names is difficult to separate from truly independents right now.
So unless those people are in a place where makes sure their customers rights are respected don't expect nobody to respect you independent of what you call yourself this days.
Are you in Jamendo if not, I'm sorry, if people rip you off they are doing society a favor.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RIAA_member_labels
Is your label in there somewhere?
Tell yours is in there LoL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
As the lights dim you start to smell the distinct aroma of sulphur & burning flesh.
A dark figure approaches you with a small stack of paper with fine print and places it down in-front of you, you feel a small prick in your finger & notice a drop of blood forming at the tip.
He states, just sign at the bottom of this stack, and I'll make you an offer you just can't refuse.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Big banks speculate, keep profits, stick taxpayers with losses.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Big banks speculate, keep profits, stick taxpayers with losses.
Strange and totally freaky people like yourself though...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There isn't a hint of anything in the article saying that Universal ripping off artists justifies ripping off anything. At most the article highlights the hypocrisy of a major record label itself ripping off the artists that it claims to be supporting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ripped Off
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This world's first name.. it wouldn't happen to be "Snoop", would it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Do you have a license to remix?
Reporting you to RIAA and ICE.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I think the original computed damages was over 6 billion or something like that. UMGs share should be enough to make it more fun.
I am surprised that no one has pointed out the obvious thing happening here. UMG is showing once again that the industry is all for someone else paying to help them out. They want YouTube/HotFile/et al to spend money to create a system to protect their copyright, when their own attempts show its nearly impossible to do cheaply. But lets pass some more laws and make everyone else pay for our free ride.
I wonder what would happen if we started shaming Congresscritters who take money from UMG for supporting a business who feels they are to big to fail and want someone else to come in and pay to fix their wrongdoings.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
These entertainment company attitudes...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
MAFIAAs in love - the prison edition
Time to use the labels own arguments against them in court.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]