SoundExchange, Once Again, Warns Artists That If They Don't Register, It Might Keep Their Royalties
from the again? dept
You may recall that nearly a decade ago, people began to question why SoundExchange, the RIAA spinoff created to collect satellite and internet broadcasting royalties, was allowed to keep any of the money for artists it couldn't find. That resulted in some controversy, when people realized that it was sitting on over $100 million and suggesting it might keep the money for a big list of artists it couldn't find. After much uproar, SoundExchange backed down, and said that it wasn't, in fact, keeping the money. And, to its credit, in the past few years, SoundExchange has been very good about working a variety of angles to get artists signed up to get the money they're owed from such webcasting royalties (such as those Pandora was just talking about).However, some artists still aren't signing up -- and SoundExchange is apparently giving people something of an ultimatum, in which they hint at the fact that, you know, if they wanted to they absolutely could just keep the money.
Register by Oct. 15 as you may risk losing any royalties collected three (3) or more years ago by SoundExchange.As some have noticed there are some pretty big names on the "unclaimed" list. Swedish House Mafia, N.W.A., Billy Bob Thornton, Sublime, Fleetwood Mac, Rebecca Black, Louis CK, Grandmaster Flash, The Byrds, Charlie Sheen, Brother Ali... and a bunch of others. I'm pretty surprised that Rebecca Black and Louis CK haven't figured this out yet... but there's one name on the list that is stunning: Gene Simmons. Simmons is famous for being focused almost entirely on getting money, even to the point of saying that artists should sue their fans. You'd think that somewhere along the line he'd notice that he should register with SoundExchange to get what's owed to him.
SoundExchange is authorized by law to release older unclaimed royalties to offset our costs and distribute proportionally to those we already pay. We have repeatedly held off on doing this, but we need your help to spread the word and get recording artists and record labels to register.
For what it's worth -- while there were some legitimate concerns that SoundExchange was doing little to "find" these artists, I no longer believe that's the case. Having watched their efforts over the past few years, they really have done quite a lot to try to get artists to register. Of course, this really just highlights one of the problems of setting up a system like SoundExchange in the first place. Creating unnecessary middlemen may seem like a useful solution, but it often seems to just prevent more direct support of artists. Still, if you are a recording artist of any kind, it's worth getting registered to avoid having SoundExchange keep the money it has for you for itself.
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Filed Under: gene simmons, registration, royalties
Companies: soundexchange
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Good
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Re: Good
It doesn't seem hard to find Gene Simmons and mention that you have money for him. Heck, Richard Castle and Kate Beckett stumbled onto his house by coincidence. If fictional characters can find him, why can't SoundExchange?
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Re: Re: Good
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If Sound Exchange has money that rightfully belongs to Gene Simmons, why don't they just give it to him?
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it rhymes with "flembezzlement"
Also, I think three years of interest on what they owe him can more than cover the cost of sending a check by registered letter.
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It really is not that easy. They need him to verify who he is, so they know that they're giving money to the right person. So they try to "give it to him" by contacting him and telling him to register. But if he doesn't do that, they can't verify it... and can't give it to him.
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To do anything else would be to open themselves up to accusations of fraud in everything. Right now, they're only fraudulent to independent artists.
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If SoundExchange is collecting money on the behalf of others, there should be no way in hell they get to keep any unclaimed money for themselves. It should go into trust until those artists are located and registered, indefinitely. Allowing profit to enter as a possibility only encourages corruption, especially regarding foreign artists who may not have any knowledge of the organisation's existence let alone know the process of registering. If money is being collected "on behalf of" artists, then the collectors should be the ones doing all the work.
I can't see how it's not possible for them to verify the identity of people signed to major corporations, as most of the named artists in the article are. If it is that difficult, maybe they shouldn't be collecting for them in the first place. I can only imagine the howls of indignation if one of the scapegoated "pirate" sites were to have a similar practice, yet this is somehow OK.
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Or, should not have "collected" it in the first place.
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Collect your share of hundreds of millions of dollars by registering with our site now!
Hurry! Sign up now before this offer ends!
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Created to benefit themselves not those they are meant to "serve".
Why should any artist have to put great effort into getting money collected for them? If you don't have the artists permission to gather the money, why are you doing it? Oh because you got a law passed to "benefit" the artists who have to jump through lots of hoops to make sure they can try to get what is supposed to be due them.
All of these things we have to do "for the artists!" and yet no thought is put into actually having it benefit those artists. We have to make sure these artists get what is due to them!!!! But we didn't built in any rules about actually making the money reach the artists.
Its like the charities that exploit images of starving children, it only takes the cost of a cup of coffee to save them. But for every dollar they get maybe 10 cents kinda sorta makes it towards those they are supposed to be helping.
If Sound Exchange wasn't sitting on a big pile of cash, they'd feel they had less power. And cash is tempting, so while everyone is distracted lets take another look at ways to increase our cash base so we can get more money "for the artists" so we can find ways to divert that cash into our coffers.
TPB trial demonstrates this with crystal clarity, the poor ripped off artists trotted out to get more money awarded... then the rug pulled out from under them when it is announced any money they get goes to the "rights" societies. Now get back in your mud huts, and make do with the scraps we let you have until we need your dirty faces for our next public appeal for cash.
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Re: Created to benefit themselves not those they are meant to "serve".
You are hereby directed to not collect any payment from any other person, company or other entity on behalf of any and all members of the Artists-Are-Here company (henceforth known as AAH). Should you have collected any payment on behalf of AAH, that money is stolen property, taken without authorisation. You are hereby directed to return any such funds to the entities that you collected it from. The return of funds must be made in an expeditious manner. You have three months from the date of this letter. Should you fail to return such funds, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, under the law against taking property under false pretenses.
Yours faithfully,
Joe Artist, manager of AAH
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same song, different singer
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Re: same song, different singer
Some how they couldn't find time to go over the list and send out payments until they were sued.
What does the overhead they collect pay for if not making sure they keep track of the people they are supposed to be paying? They are part of an obviously broken system, but there is no reason to work and make it better because that could hurt their windfall.
Given the sheer number of collection societies around the globe each artist is supposed to sign up with, it is ridiculous. The societies made sense in a world where it was rare to get popular outside of a certain area, but its a global market... it might be time to just create a global society rather than 1000's of minor societies who have no reason to make the effort. But then they have to admit the market is global and they are to far into denying that to back out now.
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They should stop collecting the money
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Re: They should stop collecting the money
They should be allowed to collect more money so they can fund an inhouse study of methods to locate other acts owned money and methods they might be able to connect them with funds.
/s
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Oh wait, it is not about the thieving freetard public or the Internet killing music.
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the solution is simple
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Screw You MAFIAA ! My Art will never be Registered with the likes of you.
www.bigmeathammer.com
Tons of free Audio and Video
Also shared on P2P
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I wish I was rich
2) Lobby
3) Get law passed making your "non-profit" spin-off allowed to collect other people's income
4) Claim people aren't registering
5) Keep money
Must be awesome being rich. Make your own rules.
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Re: I wish I was rich
interesting
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