Big Music: death of the status quo
p2pnet.net news view:- Most Canadians are confused about the music industry and how different parts exist that seem to be battling each other for music related money. The largest division is between the composers/authors/publishers of the underlying music and the recording industry (labels, etc).
We’re moving into a time when the recording industry may no longer have much of a purpose, with much of their roll being replaced by cheaper methods of recording and distributing recorded music, more fair promotional methods that don’t leave the majority of musicians poor in order to prop up superstars, and a wider variety of business models available to artists.
The recording industry is fighting back against this modernizing trend, trying to replace some of the money they are loosing in this market modernization by taking it from the music publishing arm which has seen growth with new media.
You can see an example of this battle in the Hollywood Reporter:
WASHINGTON — Record labels are asking a panel of copyright judges to lower the rate they pay music publishers and songwriters for the use of the lyrics and melodies with which they create sound recordings.
The same thing is happening in Canada at the Copyright Board, with the four major transnational labels (Sony/BMG, EMI, Universal, Warner) that control IFPI, as well as CRIA, RIAA, and other national rebrandings, fighting the music industry in each country.
I believe we need to have governments step in with sound economic analysis to protect the music industry from the recording industry.
The focus should be on protecting the rights of the songwriters (not just the publishers) and the performers (not the legacy recording industry labels).
As an example, much of the publishing industry is under collective licensing where payment and not permission is required for communication of music over radio and public performances (such as in bars).
One proposal is to do something similar with online distribution of recorded music, returning royalty payments to the performers. This would allow the growth in online music distribution to benefit artists, rather than pitting artists against music fans in legal and other battles which nobody wins.
We shouldn’t be looking at ways to protect the recording industry from modernization.
Like the horseshoe business during the growth of the automobile, it’s a sign of modernization and not a bad thing when outdated industries downsize.
Russell McOrmond – p2pnet contributing editor
[McOrmond is an independent author (software and non-software) who uses modern business models and licensing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Creative Commons). He's also the CLUE policy coordinator.]
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Also See:
battle – Big Music wants royalties lowered, December 7, 2006
The Times Online – World’s oldest record shop in the death grip of a developer, December 1, 2006
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December 11th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
The focus should be on protecting the rights of the songwriters (not just the publishers) and the performers (not the legacy recording industry labels).
Yes, and forget the balance between the middleman, the music industry, and the people.
Only the limited time monopoly interest of the creator artists and the unlimited time interest of the people need to be protected, not by the music industry or the music industry contaminated courts, but by the people themselves throught their political representatives.
The middleman’s method of distributing payola laced plastic has its days counted because of technology and environmental considerations. There is, therefore, no need to protect the industry from its coming natural death.
Besides, the music inductry plays dirty in everyway it can.
If anything its death should be accelerated.
This is what copyrights reform should be all about.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 14th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Funny, isn’t it? The music industry folks talk about how “pirating” is taking money away from artists–they trot out some poor, starving rich folks to talk about how they’re losing money from file sharing–and then they’re lobbying to give less money to these same people? I must be missing something. . .