Legacy Music Industry Shouldn't Get To Watch Over The Royalties Of Independent Songwriters

from the we've-done-this-before dept

Last year, a very strange thing happened in the copyright space: a pretty major update to copyright law was passed and it wasn't that controversial. Leading up to that passage there had been plenty of concerns, but a compromise was worked out last fall that was... actually pretty good for everyone involved. It wasn't how any sane society would craft copyright law from scratch, but the key aspects of the Music Modernization Act were to attempt to fix a lot of other really broken stuff. At the time we focused on the fact that it would help expedite moving some very old music into the public domain, which was great. But the much bigger deal to the music world was a reform of the mechanical licensing process for songwriters.

As we discussed in walking through one of a few lawsuits that had been filed against music streaming platforms over mechanical licensing, it was such a complex area of copyright law that basically no one fully understood it. Every single copyright lawyer I spoke to in trying to understand it would give me a totally different answer. So part of the Music Modernization Act was to clear up the questions around mechanical licensing and internet services, making it easier for songwriters to actually get royalties they're owed, without the convoluted process that used to be in place.

As with all things, the devil is very much in the details, and suddenly things are looking a bit problematic. The law directs the Register of Copyrights to designate an entity to become the new "mechanical license collective" (MLC), effectively creating a brand new collection society for these mechanical royalties. The Copyright Office has an open comment period on this, which is about to end, and musician Zoe Keating has noticed that the entire process appears to be rigged to (of course) help divert money to the big music publishers and away from independent artists. She's written a very detailed, but well worth reading, description of the problematic aspect of what's happening, and is asking the Copyright Office to extend the comment period as more songwriters -- especially independent ones, learn what's going on and can weigh in.

The key part in all of this is that the organization that represents the biggest music publishers, the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) is angling to run this new MLC. Indeed, it appears to be acting as if it already is in charge of it:

The NMPA very cleverly named their proposed group the “MLC” and continually refer to it as the “industry consensus” group. David Israelite in his sworn testimony to congress said the NMPA “is the trade association representing all American music publishers and their songwriting partners.” That’s not quite true. The NMPA does not represent songwriters like me.

Again, there is so much confusion on the street about mechanical royalties. I’ve been talking to all the songwriters I can the last couple weeks. So many are confused about what these royalties are and how to collect them. Some songwriters have tried to educate themselves and have read up about it only then to be confused by the NMPA’s naming confusion and as a result, think that the NMPA’s MLC is already The MLC or that it is the same as the AMLC or that everyone is on the same page. In short, there is confusion. That confusion benefits the NMPA.

A big part of the role of whoever becomes the MLC (whether it's the NMPA's version or another one) is, of course, to get the money they've collected to the artists who deserve it. And therein lies a bit of a concern:

There is a pot of unclaimed royalties that have already been paid by music services that is estimated to be between $1.5 and $2.5 billion. A major task of the new MLC will be to apply some clever technology to match that money to its rightful owners. I’ve already explained the difficulty of collecting when you’re unrepresented. Without question, a large portion of these unclaimed royalties belong to self-published songwriters.

The new law says that after three years the board of the MLC can decide to liquidate that pot of unclaimed royalties and distribute it to themselves by market share. This strikes me as a huge conflict of interest. Does the NMPA even have any incentive to do what it takes to match the royalties to whomever earned them? Are the unclaimed royalties of unrepresented songwriters just going to keep getting distributed to Sony, Universal etc now and forever going forward?

If you've been reading Techdirt for a really long time, this may sound familiar. Way back in 2004, the law over a different kind of royalty -- for interactive streams -- that was collected by a new group (SoundExchange) spun off from the organization representing the big record labels (the RIAA) said that it, too, could keep the money for itself, if the organization couldn't find artists. And, magically, SoundExchange had "trouble" finding lots of artists, including some really big names. By 2009, we noted that SoundExchange was hanging on to over $100 million that belonged to artists. Public outcry over this did eventually result in SoundExchange promising not to just keep the money for itself, and to its credit, after a lot of work, the organization did become much better at finding artists.

But it boggles the mind that having already gone through that experience 15 or so years ago, the Copyright Office would set up a nearly identical boondoggle. And, as Keating notes, the NMPA doesn't want much oversight over its proposed organization (unlike the competing proposal, which Keating is supporting):

If the NMPA is awarded this contract by the Copyright Office they will control billions of dollars in royalties without oversight (unlike the AMLC, the NMPA proposal says the Copyright Office will not oversee their entity) and with a conflict of interest that gives them incentive to liquidate and distribute unclaimed royalties to their members rather than to the songwriters who actually earned them.

This is increasingly important. As we've continued to show in our latest Sky is Rising report, the number of musicians and music being created continues to skyrocket. And a whole lot of that is coming from independent songwriters and musicians. The idea that the legacy industry should be able to collect and be in charge of distributing many millions of dollars owed to those independents seems problematic in many ways -- and it's not helped by the presumptuous attitude of the NMPA in pushing its own organization as the solution.

Keating is asking the Copyright Office to, at the very least, extend the deadline for comments beyond April 22nd, and hopefully the Copyright Office will listen.

The education issues here are huge. All the songwriters, large and small, that I’ve talked to have asked why they haven’t heard about any of this controversy when so much money is at stake. “If it was a big deal, why haven’t I heard about it?”. I can’t believe the deadline is as soon as April 22. We need more time to educate songwriters on this issue so they can choose which entity will administer their mechanical royalties.

I call on the Registrar of Copyrights to extend the comment period.

Meanwhile, I call on all songwriters to submit comments to the Registrar of Copyrights.

As Keating points out, one of the biggest challenges she's always had in making a full-time living as a successful independent musician is not piracy, but rather the legacy industry getting in the way and keeping money it owes her.

Ironically, a lot of the obstacles in the early stages of my career came not from file-sharing/piracy sites but from the established music industry and their gate-keeping. I understand that the NMPA is trying to protect its members from an industry that most often tries to siphon off as much of their member’s earnings as possible, but they should not protect themselves at the expense of unrepresented songwriters. Lets not bake the mistakes of the past into future systems.

Filed Under: independent song writers, mechanical royalties, mechanicals, mlc, music licensing, music modernization act, songwriters, zoe keating
Companies: nmpa

BMI Records Record Revenue... While Whining To DOJ That It Can't Function Under Antitrust Agreement

from the something-doesn't-add-up-here dept

As we've been discussing, the two big music collection societies in the US, ASCAP and BMI, are desperately fighting to get the DOJ to alter (or end entirely) the "consent agreement" that they operate under. The consent agreement, in various forms, has been in place for decades, after the DOJ properly recognized that in licensing songwriters' and publishers' public performance rights, they had something of a monopoly. And monopolies can be dangerous when abused. Thus the consent decree to keep the organizations in line. However, both are really angry about this, in large part because they believe that without the consent decree, they could create a world in which they could force everyone to have to pay much higher fees (you can see some of how they tried to collude with publishers to jack up rates to Pandora).

So far, the attempt to get rid of the consent decree has not been going well. It has resulted in more investigations into the publishers for collusion for one thing. The DOJ has also apparently realized that the collection society's treatment of songs with multiple copyright holders may be another anti-trust violation.

And, yet, ASCAP and BMI keep trying to convince everyone that they're suffering under this "obsolete" consent decree, and they need to have it modified greatly. BMI, in comments to the DOJ, has claimed that it's suffocating under the current system, which it says is "broken":

The digital revolution in information processing and communications has completely transformed the way music performances are heard by the public and equally changed the way in which information about music performances is collected and processed. In particular, the rise of Internet streaming as a principal way the public hears performances of music has created market needs that are now not being met because of inefficient and anticompetitive restrictions in the BMI consent decree that serve no sound purpose today.

There is an urgent need for action now. BMI agrees with the Register of Copyrights’ recent testimony characterizing music licensing as “broken,” and certain aspects of the BMI consent decree have contributed to that breakdown. The decree creates rigidities and restrictions in the way BMI must operate that undermine BMI’s efficiency as a resource for both music users and music copyright owners in the digital world. The existing rate court mechanism has proven too slow, too expensive, and too legalistic to keep up with the speed of change in real-world markets today. The need is so dire that, rather than press for comprehensive reform at this point, in these public comments BMI urges the Department to prioritize particular changes that address these immediate needs.

Things must really suck for BMI and all the songwriters who get paid via BMI, right? Oh... wait. BMI has just announced a new record in revenue collection and pay out to artists.

BMI, whose full name is Broadcast Music Inc., collected $1.013 billion for the 12 months that ended in June, up almost 4 percent from the year before. That is slightly more than the $1.001 billion that its competitor Ascap took in last year.

In the number that will be scrutinized most closely by musicians — royalties — BMI paid slightly less than its rival. After deducting its operating expenses, BMI distributed $877 million to its thousands of members, including songwriters like Taylor Swift, Nile Rodgers and Adam Levine of Maroon 5. Last year, Ascap paid its members $883 million.

Why is it paying less than ASCAP? BMI doesn't blame the broken consent decree, but rather "significant legal costs" made up mainly of its lawsuit against Pandora. In other words, something that BMI had control over. The article also notes this little fact:

Since 2005, BMI’s collections have increased about 40 percent.

So, uh, can we hear again about how "dire" the situation is and how BMI can't function, even as its revenue has grown 40% in the last decade and it's setting all kinds of new records? Did BMI think the DOJ would just ignore that bit?

Filed Under: anti-trust, antitrust, collection societies, consent decree, doj, pros, publishers, revenue, songwriters
Companies: ascap, bmi

ASCAP Asks FCC To Block Pandora From Buying Radio Station, Because ASCAP Doesn't Like Pandora

from the because-reasons dept

We'd already talked about how the legacy players in the recording industry had lashed out at Pandora for buying a small radio station. As we noted, Pandora was doing this to more or less highlight the absolute hypocrisy (and possible illegality) of ASCAP who offers cheaper streaming rates for terrestrial radio stations to stream their programming online. Since this stuff gets a bit confusing, as a reminder, ASCAP (along with others like BMI and SESAC) collect and distribute money for composers and publishers, not for musicians playing the music (though, obviously, sometimes the composers also play). ASCAP has a variety of different rates that it charges for things, and Pandora noted that its online competitors, such as iHeartRadio -- which is owned by ClearChannel, the largest owners of terrestrial radio stations in the US -- pay a lower rate for online streaming.

ASCAP has been offering iHeartRadio and other terrestrial stations that also do streaming cheaper licenses for their streaming than it offers to Pandora. Pandora has argued that this violates the antitrust agreement that the DOJ made ASCAP agree to, after it was discovered that ASCAP was engaged in a variety of anti-competitive practices to restrict the market.

The hysteria over this from some less-than-well-informed folks in the music industry has really been quite incredible. Contrary to some claims that we've seen, Pandora is not trying to get a special deal. Nor is it trying to say that it doesn't have to pay performer rights (which are a whole different issue). All it's really doing is highlighting how ASCAP is discriminating against online-only streaming services by charging them different rates than online streaming services that happened to be owned by terrestrial radio stations.

The latest, however, is that ASCAP is now asking the FCC to block the purchase, mainly because ASCAP doesn't like it.

Pandora is buying KXMZ for one reason – to argue that it is entitled to pay lower music performance royalties to composers, songwriters and lyricists for its billions of online-only internet music streams.

Actually, it seems like Pandora is buying KXMZ to demonstrate that ASCAP has discriminatory and unfair pricing practices in how it offers its licenses. It's not that Pandora is claiming that it alone is magically entitled to lower royalties -- it's pointing out that everyone else gets lower royalties and Pandora is wondering why it is singled out for higher royalties.

Honestly, that's about the extent of ASCAP's argument. Beyond that, it focuses on some procedural issues about the paperwork that Pandora filled out -- ASCAP claims they didn't follow all the rules. But, clearly, ASCAP doesn't go around making sure that everyone buying radio stations has dotted their i's and crossed their t's. ASCAP is just upset that Pandora is suddenly calling attention to ASCAP's discriminatory online streaming rates. Even on the technicalities ASCAP is being particularly ridiculous. For example, it claims that Pandora did not properly disclose its ownership, because it claims that Pandora improperly referred to Wellington Management Company as "an investment adviser" in the past, but for this document, refers to it as "an investment company." That's the sort of minutiae ASCAP is pulling out to try to block this.

The whole thing is petty in the extreme. ASCAP clearly has discriminatory pricing practices against online-only streaming companies -- and is embarrassed by Pandora making this point very clearly by purchasing this tiny radio station. Is it a move to "game" the system? Yes, it is but a move necessitated by ASCAP's discriminatory pricing. If ASCAP is so upset about this, perhaps it shouldn't have priced internet streaming differently depending on whether or not you own a radio station.

Filed Under: composers, fcc, rates, songwriters, streaming
Companies: ascap, pandora

Pandora's Fed Up With The Lies The RIAA Has Been Spreading About It: Presents Some Facts

from the let's-rethink-this dept

We've pointed out that, recently, the RIAA and various front groups and attack-for-hire firms that it funds have been really turning up the attacks on Pandora, the hugely successful internet service that already pays significantly more in royalties than pretty much anyone else out there. This strategy is very much in the RIAA's tradition of attacking any successful internet company in the belief that 100% of the benefits of any successful internet company should flow to the RIAA.

In this case, the RIAA and its front groups have done a masterful job of misleading a group of artists into parroting RIAA talking points pretending that Pandora's royalties are too low, not too high. Most of these claims are based on a either base ignorance, or conscious deception, often focused on comparing apples to oranges. In some cases, this involves comparing totally different businesses (like Pandora to retailers), or, at times, it means comparing Pandora's "per play" royalties to the "per play" royalties of other services like terrestrial radio or satellite radio. Of course, that's insanely misleading, because the real metric is never "per play," but per listener. With Pandora, a single play is to a single listener (or, possibly a few people in a room or a car). But, terrestrial and satellite radio plays are broadcast, meaning that they usually have tens or even hundreds of thousands of listeners per play. Comparing "per play" rates is just a really dumb metric. There's a separate issue in terms of how some have misrepresented the various payments, implying that Pandora's payments are much, much lower than they really are -- something that an eager media picked up on without even the slightest bit of fact checking.

It would appear that Pandora has finally had enough of the smear campaign and the attacks and has posted a detailed response to these attacks, highlighting how wrong almost every talking point has been concerning Pandora, and how this level of dialogue has done a lot more harm than good.

The first falsehood being disseminated is that Pandora is seeking to reduce artist royalties by 85%. That is a lie manufactured by the RIAA and promoted by their hired guns to mislead and agitate the artist community. We have never, nor would we ever advocate such a thing. I challenge the RIAA to identify a statement from Pandora that says we seek to reduce royalties by 85%. On the contrary, all of the key principals including Cary Sherman (the head of the RIAA) and Mike Huppe (the head of SoundExchange) know that we have been advocating for solutions that would grow total payments to artists. The 85% sound bite preys upon the natural suspicions of the artist community, but it is simply untrue. And although we compete directly with AM/FM radio, which pays zero performance royalties, we have always supported fair compensation to artists.

It has also hit back on the claim that Pandora has been seeking to cut songwriter fees, explaining that it had come to a direct agreement with ASCAP on higher fees, and then ASCAP went back on the agreement and started playing games -- such as withdrawing tracks, but refusing to tell Pandora which tracks, such that it risked huge statutory fines if it played the wrong tracks. For all of ASCAP's claims that it is protecting artists, the reality looks like it was harming artists' best interests in trying to kill Pandora:

The next issue concerns the publishing side. Historically, Pandora has paid essentially the same rate as all other forms of radio, a rate established unilaterally by the performing rights organizations, ASCAP and BMI, in the late 1990s. In November of last year, following a lengthy negotiation, Pandora agreed with ASCAP to a new rate, an increase over the prior amount, and shook hands with ASCAP management. Not only was our hand-shake agreement rejected by the ASCAP board, but shortly thereafter we were subjected to a steady stream of “withdrawals” by major publishers from ASCAP and BMI seeking to negotiate separate and higher rates with Pandora, and only Pandora. This move caused us to seek the protection of the rate, also recently negotiated, enjoyed by the online radio streams of broadcast radio companies. It’s important to note that these streams represent 96% of the Internet radio listening hours among the top 20 services outside of Pandora (talk about an un-level playing field). We did not enter this period looking for a lower rate – we agreed to a higher rate. But in a sad irony, the actions of a few small, but powerful publishers seeking to gain advantage for themselves has caused all songwriters’ royalties to go down. Any characterization of Pandora as being out to cut publishing rates flies in the face of the facts.

And, amazingly, the RIAA and others have been successful in spinning this, falsely, into saying that Pandora was looking to cut back on what it paid songwriters.

The depths to which the RIAA has sunk in its attacks on Pandora are really quite despicable, but it's par for the course for them. Anything successful in the music space created "outside" the record labels is bad and somehow "building on the backs of our copyrights." They won't rest until they've killed each off. The past decade and a half are littered with the remains of internet and tech companies who built great products in the music space that fans loved, each one systematically killed by the major record labels and the RIAA, who demand ever higher royalties.

Filed Under: internet radio, lobbying, music royalties, royalties, songwriters
Companies: musicfirst, pandora, riaa

Bob Goodlatte Receives Most Awkward Serenade Ever With Pro-Copyright Song

from the we-gotta-go-to-the-crappy-town-where-i'm-a-hero! dept

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte has sort of an up and down history when it comes to technology and innovation. He made some rather unfortunate comments after the SOPA debates, ignoring the public's place in talks. On the other hand, he was among the lawmakers who wanted to make unlocking phones legal -- though his proposal on that front was very weak, and did little to fix the underlying problem. At one point, Goodlatte said the DMCA system needed to go and service providers needed to have more onus on them over IP issues. However, more recently he came out and suggested that the DOJ and Hollywood have too cozy of a relationship.

What's equally unclear is why members of the Southwest Virginia Songwriters Association (Seriously? That's a thing?), who are on the Hill as the Grammys lobby Congress, decided to offer up an incredibly awkward serenade of Goodlatte in the form of a pro-copyright song.

The song, “Copy-Right, Copy-Wrong,” was written by Goodlatte constituents and members of the Southwest Virginia Songwriters Association: Larry Sakayama, Greg Trafidlo and Barbara Martin. Nashville songwriter Darrell Brown also pitched in. The lyrics forgive Goodlatte for being born a Yankee, while tracing the congressman’s journey from his “college in Maine” to the law degree that will help him to “slay the piracy giants.”

“To those that make the music, he’s our Moses,” the group crooned. “Even better than Charlton Heston.” The chorus continues: “Chairman Bob/Get your hands in the mud/Chairman Bob/Roll up your sleeves Bob/Say Copy-right yeah yeah/Not Copy-wrong no no.”

It would be difficult to list out the most awkward and unfortunate lyrics in the song, other than to say "all of them". Brown, the lead singer, at one point went off script with the lyrics, singing "Don't make me get the majority whip, now." Er, that isn't creepy at all. So congratulations, Songwriters Association of Wherever. Your screed against "copy-wrong" fits so nicely into the "that awkward moment when" meme that you've tripped into the internet anyway.

Filed Under: bob goodlatte, copyright, serenade, songwriters

Canadian Songwriters Want To Embrace File Sharing, But Do They Have The Right Approach?

from the artists-who-get-that-the-internet-isn't-evil dept

in 2007, the Songwriters Association of Canada gained some international headlines with a proposal to legalize non-commercial peer-to-peer file sharing through an ISP levy. This sort of proposal wasn't new, but had not been so prominently put forth by an artist organization before. There were serious problems with the proposal, but it stimulated a healthy debate and it started from many correct premises -- that file sharing should be embraced, that digital locks and lawsuits were not a way forward, etc. But it was a non-voluntary, "you're a criminal" tax that could open the floodgates for other industries to demand similar levies.

I was a member of the Songwriters Association of Canada from 2007-2011, and I had the opportunity to express my concerns about the proposal to many people involved. Last year, I attended a session with an update on the proposal, and was surprised how much it had changed. The proposal had dropped the legislative angle in favor of a business to business approach, with an actual opt-out option for both creators and customers of participating ISPs. Unlike groups behind other licensing proposals, the SAC has actually been responsive to many concerns, and unlike other artist groups, the SAC takes a decidedly positive view on sharing music and the opportunities technology provides to creators. This attitude comes through in the proposal:

Rather than a legislative approach to the monetization of music file-sharing as we originally envisioned, the S.A.C. is now focused on a “business to business” model that requires no new legislation be enacted in Canada.

Our basic belief however remains the same: Music file-sharing is a vibrant, open, global distribution system for music of all kinds, and presents a tremendous opportunity to both creators and rights-holders. [...]

People have always shared music and always will. The music we share defines who we are, and who our friends and peers are. The importance of music in the fabric of our own culture, as well as those around the world, is inextricably bound to the experience of sharing. [emphasis changed]

As the copyright debate heats up again in Canada in light of SOPA and new pressures on pending legislation, this positive attitude towards peer-to-peer file sharing was expressed again in a recent TorrentFreak interview with the SAC VP, Jean-Robert Bisaillon:

We think the practice [of file-sharing] is great and unstoppable. This is why we want to establish a regime that allows everyone to keep on doing it without stigmatizing the public and, instead, find a way for artists and rights holders to be fairly compensated for the music files that are being shared. [...]

Other positive aspects include being able to find music that is not available in the commercial realm offer, finding a higher quality of digital files, being able to afford music even if you are poor and being able to discover new artists or recommend them to friends. [...]

Music is much better off with the Web. The internet network allows for musical discovery despite distance and time of the day. It has sparked collaborations between musicians unimaginable before. It has helped artists to book international tours without expensive long-distances charges and postal delays we knew before. [emphasis added]

However, significant problems remain with the proposal. For example, the original criticism still stands as to how this would scale for other industries -- what about book publishers, newspapers, movie studies, video game manufacturers and other industries that are also crying foul about "piracy"? The SAC dismisses other cultural industries pretty quickly, as if only the music industry is concerned about unauthorized copying. And, just like private copying levies have suffered from scope creep, as people no longer buy blank audio cassettes or CDs, or short-sightedness, as technology changes rapidly, it's not clear how the SAC model would adapt to growing wireless and mobile computing or more distributed file sharing. Many more questions remain: Would small, independent artists, who are not charting through traditional means, get fair treatment? Is it wise to largely rely on a single, proprietary vendor, Big Champagne, for tracking all distribution? Would consumers be paying multiple times for music? What does it mean to "self-declare not to music file-share" in order to opt-out?

But the central problem with the proposal is the SAC's copyright crutch. Jean-Robert Bisaillon says things like,

The Internet has dramatically increased the private non-commercial sharing of music, which we support. All that is missing a means to compensate music creators for this massive use of their work. [emphasis added]

And the proposal says things like,

Once a fair and reasonable monetization system is in place, all stakeholders including consumers and Internet service providers will benefit substantially. [emphasis added]

The SAC seems obsessed with a "monetization system," when the truth is there is no one model, no magic bullet. Rather, the the sky is rising and the path to success involves all sorts of different models and creative approaches, most of which don't depend on copyright or worrying about getting paid for every use. Even a voluntary license plan is still a bad idea. The means to compensate music creators isn't missing, it's just increasingly found outside of copyright.

Still, it's important for the SAC's voice to be heard as the copyright debate heats up again in Canada. As a creator group offering a positive take on peer-to-peer file sharing, and denouncing an "adversarial relationship" between creators and fans, they offer an important counterpoint to the SOPA-style provisions being pushed by Canadian record industry groups. I would take the SAC's constructive and responsive approach over record industry astroturfing and fear mongering any day.

Filed Under: canada, file sharing, levy, songwriters
Companies: songwriters association of canada

Apple Tells Labels, Unilaterally, That It's Increasing Song Previews To 90 Seconds

from the who's-going-to-sue-first? dept

A couple months ago, rumors made the rounds that Apple was going to double the length of song previews in iTunes from 30 to 60 seconds. An expected announcement did not appear, however, apparently because the music publishers (who in the past have already claimed -- without success -- that Apple should pay performance fees on those 30 second previews) felt Apple first needed to get permission from them, as well as the labels. So it's interesting to see that, at least with the record labels, Apple appears to be taking an aggressive approach, sending out letters simply telling labels that their deals have changed and song previews will now be 90 seconds: It'll be interesting to see if Apple did the same thing with publishers... because you'd have to imagine that the publishers would quickly file a lawsuit if that's the case. According to Greg Sandoval, over at News.com, Apple is still negotiating with the publishers. That article includes a typically ridiculous quote from Rick Carnes of the Songwriter's Guild:

"It's like giving away ice cream samples--someone has to pay the cost," said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America. "I think it would be a good thing for consumers to go to 90 seconds. But they're tripling the amount of time, and they want it for free. I think there ought to be compensation. I believe anytime you use music, you ought to reward the people making the music."

Does Rick really believe that? If so, the Songwriters should fire him as their leader. What he should be looking for is what will maximize the revenue overall, not what will maximize the revenue per use. If you get paid per use, and it means shorter previews -- but that means many fewer sales and less overall money for the artists, then Carnes with his "anytime you use, you pay" philosophy is doing serious harm to the songwriters. And, of course, the actual evidence goes against Carnes. Studies have shown that such longer previews increases purchasing, but the publishing folks and the songwriters like Carnes are more interested in licensing than in direct sales anyway (even if that's really short-sighted). It's too bad that the Songwriters Guild would be represented by someone without their best interests in mind.

Filed Under: music, previews, publishers, rick carnes, songwriters
Companies: apple

ASCAP Continues Propaganda Campaign With Laughably Bad Video [Updated]

from the but-you're-giving-it-away-for-free dept

While ASCAP is apparently too busy to debate Larry Lessig, they aren't too busy to produce silly and ridiculous propaganda. ASCAP member Damian Sol notes that he recently received an email from ASCAP asking him to "spread the word" about ASCAP's new propaganda video that compares getting songwriters paid for music to getting chickens and cows paid for their eggs and milk. Seriously. I'd embed it here, but the technologically savvy folks at ASCAP are apparently too clueless to figure out how to include an embed on a video they claim they want people to "share." Update: Aha. While they don't make it clear on the page, the video has also been uploaded to YouTube, where it is embeddable:

Anyway, since ASCAP believes that every public performance needs to be paid for, and the idea of "free promotion" is a myth, I do have to ask: is ASCAP paying Peter Himmelman, the guy who made the video, each time it's played?

Update 2: Also, as many in the comments have noted, they've also produced a second video, which is just ridiculously misleading. You can watch it here: Two major problems with the video. The first is that ASCAP continues to falsely portray "open source" believers as being somehow against compensation. It includes a guy in a t-shirt that says "open source dude," which morphs into "fair payment man" in the video.

The bigger problem is that it sets up a total strawman to knocks down, in saying that people don't think music is "as valuable" as a variety of tangible goods because you can hold/eat/watch those goods "and because people made them." The conclusion of the video? Music is valuable because "people made it." Uh, ok. Except that the debate isn't over the value of music. It's about the price of music, and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that value and price are the same thing. And while some people might actually find a TV set or a pair of shoes more valuable than music, it's not because one is tangible and the other is not. It's because they simply value one more than the other. What people are actually arguing -- a point that ASCAP won't address because it can't -- is that setting up a bureaucracy that gets a government granted ability to demand money from venues promoting musicians music can actually do serious harm to musicians by making it that much more difficult to find venues that can promote their music.

Filed Under: composers, copyright, propaganda, songwriters
Companies: ascap

Nice Work ASCAP: Convinces Yet Another Coffee Shop To Stop Promoting Local Bands

from the all-about-the-money dept

We see nearly identical stories every six months or so, but Chris Curvey has sent in the latest involving the various US collection societies -- ASCAP, BMI and SESAC threatening a little coffee shop into canceling all live music, after demanding a performance license, despite the fact that the coffee shop only has local, unsigned bands playing, with a promise that they won't play any cover songs. It's the same old story that we hear over and over again. The venue insists that only unsigned bands are playing, and they're not playing ASCAP music, and ASCAP says that it doesn't matter. You need to pay up just in case a band happens to hum someone else's song:

"I am 100 percent in compliance," Hopper said. "I'm not charging cover at the door. I'm not paying the bands, and they are just playing songs they wrote. They essentially said to me, 'We don't care. We have this low-end licensing fee you must have because there is a chance your band might play a cover song.' "

This has been happening all over the country, and the end result is actually causing massive harm for up-and-coming artists. That's because these kinds of coffee shops and small bars that used to be where most musicians would get their start via open mic nights, are now banning all music to avoid having to pay these licenses. It means there are fewer places for musicians to have a chance to perform in front of a live audience. ASCAP/BMI/SESAC claiming that they're helping artists is a flat out lie. Their mission is really to support the largest acts at the expense of smaller acts, and ridiculous demands on coffee shops like the one above contributes to that situation. They even admit it at times, when you catch them talking candidly.

Some folks have been willing to stand up to these collection societies, like the town in Connecticut who received license demands for music played at the town center. In response, the town council voted to ignore the threats. But, it seems that it's just easier for most little shops to just stop playing music altogether. Of course, that goes against ASCAP's public claims of being in the interest of artists, but ASCAP and BMI have made their real goals clear through their actions, and it has little to do with actually helping up-and-coming artists. After all, they might compete with the big stars.

Filed Under: coffee shops, open mics, songwriters
Companies: ascap, bmi, sesac

Irish Collection Society Wants Music Bloggers To Pay Up To Promote Music

from the foot,-gun,-aim dept

After recently covering how an Irish performance rights society wanted to charge hotels for public performance fees because people could listen to music in their rooms, comes the news (sent in by eoinmonty) that a different Irish music organization, the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO), is demanding popular music blogs throughout Ireland pay up to keep promoting music -- even when that music is sent to the bloggers by the record labels and musicians directly for the sake of promotion. They apparently have already hit up some of the most popular Irish music blogs, even though some of them make no money at all (have no ads) and are done purely for the love of the music.

The issue, of course, is that IMRO covers the songwriting/composition rights -- like ASCAP or BMI in the US -- rather than the performance/recording rights. So, in IMRO's short-sighted view, it doesn't even matter if the musicians and labels want the music playing for free on those blogs, it has to collect for the songwriters. Apparently, no one has stopped to realize that in demanding hundreds of pounds from some popular hobbyist sites that those sites will likely go away, and the songwriters will get significantly less exposure for their music.

Filed Under: ireland, music bloggers, songwriters
Companies: imro