Real agents – copyright or any other kind of agent – are employed by the vendor, the person with something to sell. For an agent to have clients that the agent can’t contact is surely an admission of fraudulent conduct.

And the government mandated ‘exclusive rights , compulsory rights’,in effect, means that the management fees paid by artists/clients towards the operating costs of SoundExchange are mandated/compulsory. This is an hypothecated tax in support of the management of SoundExchange.
Is SoundExchange a official US govt organisation ,subject to the same degree of control as any other organisation that is funded by taxes -mandated ‘dutys’ of support’?

Last question, the method to calculate distributions is inherently redistributive. It is not based on any clear nexus between individual right holders permission (of use of the music) and payment to that individual. Exactly who gets what, (even if the details were made available,) seems to be a matter of decision by this mandated organisation therefore isn’t this intrinsically redistributive system: a tax and not a royalty?
And if so what on earth is the government of the US doing it for?
Why the compulsory Collectivization of rightholders, where is the urgent community need that justifies this authoritarian scheme?
And why dosent the US have Trade practice laws that would prevent this monopoly restriction of terms of trade?

I made a commitment in my original post to attempt to respond to any questions posted, and I’ll do that. Much of what you wrote is worth discussing…there’s too much time put into your reply to dismiss all you’ve said out of hand, and that was never my original intention in posting anyway. That doesn’t mean I agree that it’s all correct – I believe you draw some wrong conclusions, in some cases based on what I suspect is incomplete information on your part (and the tone of some of your questions bears this out), and I have since re-read your post several times to try to understand your perspective.

The one immediate response I’ll make is on the distribution percentage- you’re correct, it’s 50%, not 55%. 45% goes to the featured musician, and 5% goes to non-featured musicians. Nothing nefarious in my original post there, but you are correct about that, I had intended to correct that in my previous post. 50% (artist) + 50% (label) – 100%.

You’ve obviously been considering many of these positions for a long time, and you suggested to me in our private notes not to respond until I had researched my answers. That will take some time, but I will spend time on this. Over and out, for now.

-Dick Huey