RIAA ‘cut artist royalties’ bid
p2pnet.net News:- Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), the members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, are nothing if not venal to the nth degree.
Their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) recently demanded a reduction in royalties they pay artists, unless they can get away with it.
‘Piracy’ was the reason given, but you can take that, or leave it.
The Digital Freedom Campaign was launched in October to defend the rights of students, artists, innovators, and consumers, “to create and make lawful use of new technologies free of unreasonable government restrictions and without fear of costly and abusive lawsuits“.
Now, “The RIAA is at it again,” says the new organization. “Even as the big labels portray themselves as the protector of the artists’ livelihoods, they are fighting to maximize their profits at the artists’ expense.
“The RIAA claims its recent wave of lawsuits and legislation was to ensure artists received their due payment. But their current campaign to pry money from the hands of artists shows their real goal is to protect their business models and profit margins.
“At Digital Freedom, we know that artists must be compensated for their work. But unlike RIAA, we think it’s time to embrace new digital technologies – not try to sue them out of existence.
“We urge the big labels to treat artists fairly. We hope the copyright royalty judges reject the big labels’ attempt to evade their obligations to the creative community.”
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
venal to the nth degree – Big Music’s survival guide, November 2, 2006
reduction in royalties – Big Music wants royalties lowered, December 7, 2006
leave it – CNET OpEd – Response to Mr. Sherman, November 13, 2006
costly and abusive lawsuits – Digital Freedom Campaign, October 26, 2006
at it again – Digital Freedom Campaign Criticizes Big Recording Labels for Gouging Musicians, December 15, 2006
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December 15th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Not too long ago, the RIAA and calhoots were tooting the “marketplace” horn. They were saying that the marketplace should determine pricing. Only it is readily seen on the surface to be just another red herring. Mysteriously, the price is 99¢ per tune no matter which of the cartel members you buy from and it doesn’t matter the store you buy it at. That’s hardly the marketplace determining the price when all prices are the same. Someone always has a better deal, a better connection to supplies, or a volume turnover that allows the deals in the first place. The only way that doesn’t work is when someone has a stranglehold on the product and has cornered the market. I think we can safely say the latter is the case involving cartel music.
The “oh the poor artist” theme has long ago worn thin. Not because it isn’t true that the majority of artists aren’t making enough to make it profitable by their works but because this same stranglehold applies to them as well. The same hands begging for the price breaks are the very ones that don’t give breaks. The true pirate and thief are the cartels.
More than anyone, the cartels need going on a monetary diet to show them they don’t stand on the right hand of godhood.
December 16th, 2006 at 12:51 am
“We hope the reject the big labels’ attempt to evade their obligations to the creative community.”
Gee, I run a music publishing company in Puerto Rico (a colony of the USA) and no one ever told me that there was such a thing as “copyright royalty judges”. Must be someone’s imaginative invention.
Records companies are required by law to have licences for musical works not in the public domain. When they seek music/song licenses, copyright holders can for whatever they want. Of course if they ask for too much no one will want to record the music. Until the arts are socialized, in a (alleged) free market economy that is how it shoud be.
For performer royalties, the rate is set in whatever the contract between the performer and the record company says.
In theory this royalties for music and performers is determined by the market, except that organized businesses have strangled the market ito behaving as they wish. For example, uniform take it or leave it contracts by organized businesses do not allow for any bargaining.
Copyright royalty judges? A bullshit story.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 16th, 2006 at 1:23 am
“We urge the big labels to treat artists fairly. We hope the copyright royalty judges reject the big labels’ attempt to evade their obligations to the creative community.”
Gee, I run a music publishing company in Puerto Rico (a colony of the USA) and no one ever told me that there was such a thing as “copyright royalty judges”. Must be someone’s imaginative invention.
Records companies are required by law to have licences for musical works not in the public domain. When they seek music/song licenses, copyright holders can ASK for whatever they want. Of course if they ask for too much, no one will want to record the music. Until the arts are socialized, in a (alleged) free market economy that is how it shoud be.
For performer royalties, the rate is set in whatever the contract between the performer and the record company says.
In theory, the royalties for music and performers is determined by the market, except that organized businesses (crime?) have strangled the market into behaving as they wish. For example, uniform take it or leave it contracts by organized businesses do not allow for any bargaining by artists. And music publishing organizatons (which monopolizes the market) licenses always have the same royalty rate, wether the song is a great song or a piece of crap.
Copyright royalty judges? A bullshit story.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 16th, 2006 at 5:33 am
at least not in the way that they do not exist!
” Copyright Royalty Board (CRB)
With the enactment of the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-419) on Nov. 30, 2004, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) system that had been part of the Copyright Office since 1993 is being phased out. The Act replaced CARP (which itself replaced the CRT in 1993) with a system of three Copyright Royalty Judges (CRJs), who will determine rates and terms for the copyright statutory licenses and make determinations on distribution of statutory license royalties collected by the Copyright Office. The CRJs will be full-time employees in the Library who will be appointed for six-year terms with an opportunity for reappointment. However, the first three judges shall serve two-, four- and six-year terms in order to establish a cycle that avoids replacing all three CRJs at the same time.”
( http://www.copyright.gov/crj/ )
–
kdsde
December 16th, 2006 at 5:46 am
they are proud to be …
<voice raised like a boxing anouncer>
the copyright judges!
</voice raised like a boxing anouncer>
http://www.loc.gov/crb/
–
kdsde
December 16th, 2006 at 11:31 am
“The Act replaced CARP (which itself replaced the CRT in 1993) with a system of three Copyright Royalty Judges (CRJs), who will determine rates and terms for the copyright statutory licenses and make determinations on distribution of statutory license royalties collected by the Copyright Office.”
Lets analyze this.
1. What is a statutory license issued by the Copyright Office?
A worthless (for music recordings) licenses which record companies never request when making a new recording.
This is the description of the licenses as published by the Copyright Office:
“The division collects royalty fees from cable operators for retransmitting television and radio broadcasts (section 111), from satellite carriers for retransmitting “superstation” and network signals (section 119), and from importers or manufacturers for distributing digital audio recording products (see Report of Receipts).”
Most licenses to record companies are issued by the music publisher owned Harry Fox. Harry Fox charges the statutory rate, but it does not have to. In essense music publisher chage whatever they want. Nothing in the law obliges Harry Fox to charge the statutory rate and nothing stops the record companies to go directly to the copyright owners (bypassing Harry Fox) and ask for a reduced royalty rate, as they frequently do.
2. When are music statutory licenses requested from the Copyright Office? When 1. a record company wants to reissue an old record or song and 2. cannot locate the copyright owner, the song is copyright registered and 3. the record company wishes to use only licensed songs. These three condictions hardly ever exist, as record companies with old songs with unfindable copyright owners are simply used with the expectation that if the copyright holder shows up and claims payments, and then (sometimes) payments are then made, after giving the claimants the run around, of course.
3. Why are music statutory licenses worthless? Because they do not convey performance rights. Stupid as it sounds, the Copyright Office does not make any arrangements so that the statutory licensed songs can somehow be performed in public (radio, etc.). Surely no artist will record a song under a statutory license because the song may not be publicly performed.
The main fact to know here is that no matter what the so called statutory royalty rate is it hardly has any bearing to record companies as statutry licenses are hardly requested, if ever, by these. The Copyright Office publishes no statistics for song statutory licenses issued, money paid them for such licenses or how the collected money was disbursed (who was actually paid and how much). It’s all hush hush.
On paper it is one thing. Reality is another.
For music, on paper there is a statutory royalty rate. In reality it has no bearing to the record companies except that it can be used as a trick.
If the useless statutory rate is reduced, the record companies will tell the copyright holders who happen to be songwriters and small publishers (without lawyers on the payroll) that the royalty rates were reduced, when in fact no such thing ocurred and will henceforth pay less in royalties. That’s my guess.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com