SoundExchange’s Huey to Wilhelms …
p2pnet news | music:- In what’s becoming a continuing online debate between entertainment lawyer and free (in the sense of unfettered) music supporter Fred Wilhelms and SoundExchange (in the sense of fettered) board mem
ber Dick Huey, “OK Mr. Wilhelm” says Huey in a p2pnet Reader’s Write, this time neglecting to get Fred’s name right.
“Over to me.”
He goes on >>>>
I can’t, and won’t, defend my actions about writing something that was completely and utterly wrong about you (or anyone, for that matter). Not even the excuse that is the truth – that I made a very public mistake about who you are – is even a remotely good answer, despite the fact that it is the answer. I apologize, fully, again.
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
Obviously, stay tuned.
Also See:
online debate – SoundExchange`s Huey v Fred Wilhelms, July 3 2007
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July 5th, 2007 at 9:53 am
“50% (artist) + 50% (label) – 100%.”
-100%!!! (probably soundexchange’s admin fee)
July 5th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Mr. Huey,
I realize that you are now intentionally misspelling my name because I said you had not earned the right to call me by my first name. You really are shameless. I could call you “Mr. Hooey,” with substantial justification based on the misinformation you’ve posted, but that won’t really promote the discussion, will it?
As to what your “original intention” was, I submit you were indeed trying to dismiss my arguments “out of hand” by suggesting they were motivated by my personal interest in the outcome. Your new attempt to avoid taking responsibility for what you said doesn’t impress me, and further reinforces my belief that your apology is not sincere. Pretending otherwise, and continuing to pretend otherwise in the face of clearly disingenuous statements about your “original intention” is actually more offensive to me than the original smear attempt. I think it is dishonest to lie about the reasons you lied about me. But that’s just me. Let’s just leave it at that.
As for my reliance on “incomplete information,” we’ll have to see what blanks you can fill in.
I will acknowledge that I received a private email from John Simson advising me that the June 30 forfeiture date has been postponed to December 15. Keeping with SoundExchange policy on forfeitures, there has been no public announcement of the postponement, but the small type on the internal page at the SoundExchange website was recently updated to reflect the change. The question of why SoundExchange chooses not to publicize its intent to absorb millions of dollars from the accounts of artists it says it cannot find is still one you can address.
In a further clarification, Mr. Simson advised me privately that SoundExchange has received a notice from nuTsie that it intends to pay royalties at the statutory rate. My question regarding the licenses to nuTsie and Slacker were based on a report that both were involved in negotiation of direct licenses from copyright holders, which would have permitted both of them to completely bypass SoundExchange and pay the labels all the license fees directly. The new information makes it clear this avenue is only being pursued by Slacker, so you can answer those questions by focusing on that single company. The answers I asked for should be the same.
Mr. Simson also advised me that I would be hearing from SoundExchange “soon” about the sampling metrics used to allocate royalties to recording artists. They have been telling me “soon” for over a month, but I am used to SoundExchange being very good at telling people what they are going to do, and less proficient at actually doing what they say they are going to do. In regard to my questions involving the sampling metric, you do not have to attempt to answer questions regarding the formulae and methods used for allocation, but you can still tell me why the SoundExchange FAQ doesn’t mention sampling and why SoundExchange chooses instead to state it makes allocations based on data it receives when it clearly does not.
You say that you are having difficulty understanding my perspective now that it turns out I don’t have the venal motive you initially attributed to me.
If you continue to have trouble understanding my “perspective,” I’ll make it easy for you:
SoundExchange has done a lousy job for the artists it has promised to serve. It admits it can’t find over 8,300 artists. It should be noted at this point that the “unfound” list contains thousands of group artists, meaning that the total number of individuals SoundExchange can’t find is going to be substantially higher than that 8,300 figure they admit to. A recent report from Live365 suggests that SoundExchange might not be able to even IDENTIFY 200,000 other artists who are played on their stations, let alone find them. My perspective on this is that SoundExchange isn’t admitting what is obvious to everyone else – it’s actions prove it doesn’t care about artists as much as it says it does. Telling me that finding 3 out of 4 artists is being “very effective” is just not good enough.
SoundExchange’s insistence that the CRB rates are good for artists ignores the fact that stations that are no longer webcasting will be paying no royalties at all. This will not be good for artists who were featured on those stations. My perspective here is that SoundExchange would rather deal with fewer stations, and fewer artists to pay.
You say that you don’t believe stations will stop broadcasting next week. That opinion is apparently not held by anyone outside SoundExchange except for Cathy “Someone Has To Pay For My $2,000 Guitar” Fink. Independent economists and financial analysts are unanimous in disputing your position. My perception here is that SoundExchange is delusional.
SoundExchange, by focusing on the “harm” low rates do to artists, appears intent on distracting attention from the fact that labels get half the royalty payout, and that thirty-five cents of every royalty dollar, under low or high rates, goes to the four RIAA labels. My persepctive here is that this isn’t honest not to acknowledge who you are working for.
No one at SoundExchange has yet explained how the artists who are heard on the stations that will be going dark are going to share in the new royalties, or how their live performances are going to be promoted on non-existent stations, or how people who discover the music through Internet radio are going to click-through to buy CDs and legal downloads from stations that aren’t there anymore. My perspective here is that SoundExchange doesn’t care about those artists because they aren’t the ones on RIAA labels.
No one at SoundExchange has yet explained the schizophrenic relationship between the organization and Internet radio. John Simson has stated both that there is no evidence that Internet radio promotes artists and sales of recordings, and then, almost at the same time, he says that the artists and Internet radio need each other. My perspective on this is that SoundExchange will say anything it can to sound reasonable when it has to. Just like you.
I hope that helps you determine what my perspective is.
July 5th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Is it just me, Mr. Wilhelms(I used CTRL+V so that I know I got your name right), or is Mr. Huey just stretching the truth just a little.
Now I know that you two know what you are talking about(but I don’t just to make this perfectly clear), however, there comes a time where there is the artists to worry about.
Let me bring up the Bay City Rollers just for a bit. They are a band that signed with a RIAA label(Arista, a subsiderary of Sony BMG) over 25 years ago, and did a hit called ‘Saturday Night’, a song that is featured in Planter’s nuts commercials. The problem? According to court documents(as reported by the BBC), they have only recieved one royalty check in the amount of $254,000 in the over 25 years since they recorded the song.
Fact, SoundExchange didn’t pay some 9,000 professional and amatuer artists claiming that they couldn’t find them, and was involved in a scandel as a result.
Fact: the BBC did report that they didn’t know if SoundExchange was looking after the Rollers(admittedly).
Gentlemen, there comes a time that you should be focusing on the artists and getting them paid, instead of arguing over numbers that are “setting” royality rates for SoundExchange to collect just to help line pockets(no names, no lawsuits).
If you think about the artists first, and setting royalty rates that small internet radio stations can afford, they can help artists by giving them exposure and they can actually make a living at it, instead of having two jobs, and only singing becoming a hobby for them.
I don’t know, but that seems like common sense.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Sad to say, common sense only comes into play if you believe SoundExchange really wants to find artists.
You make a serious error of presumption when you say: “If you think about the artists first.” I know that SoundExchange will tell you that they are all about getting artists their rightful royalties, so you might think they actually “think about artists first,” but it is past time that everyone believes what SoundExchange says and starts looking to what they actually do.
They did eventually find all the members of the Bay City Rollers, or at least they say they did, because the group name does not appear on the most recent “unfound” artist list on their website. There are currently 8,280 names on the list. Two names have been removed from the list in the last week. Those two names are proof of Mr. Huey’s belief that SoundExchange is doing a great job. At the rate of two a week, everyone currently on the list will be found no later than January, 2088. That’s something to shoot for.
SoundExchange has promised to find all the artists it collects money for. The Librarian of Congress believed them when they said it, that’s one of the reasons why SoundExchange was granted a monopoly on collecting the Internet radio royalty money. I am sure SoundExchange’s lawyers will point out that they didn’t promise to find the artists while any of the artists were still alive.
Of course, what SoundExchange isn’t telling you is that if they don’t find the artist within three years of the time the money is received from the webcasters, they get to keep that money, so the “80 year plan” is really a moot point. They will tell you that they didn’t set the time limit for the forfeiture, but they won’t tell you why they are taking such great advantage of it.
Obviously, one of the real reasons why SoundExchange is looking to decimate Internet radio by imposing exorbitant royalty rates is so that no new “unfound” artists can be added to the list between now and 2088. If the Internet webcasts are shut down, new artists cannot be played. If new artists cannot be played, those artists can’t earn royalties. If they can’t earn royalties, then SoundExchange doesn’t even have to pretend to find them. Everybody wins, as long as your definition of “everybody” doesn’t include the artists who don’t earn royalties, the Internet radio stations that won’t be broadcasting and the members of the public who won’t get to hear them.
And one last thing about that list. SoundExchange tries to explain it away by saying that they have actually contacted “many” of the names on the list, but that those artists have not completed the registration paperwork. It’s strange, but since last September, when SoundExchange finally made the list public and I started looking for artists on my own, I have been in touch with several hundred of the artists on the list. I’ve done this in free moments during the day, in the evenings and on weekends. I have registered some of them and dozens of others register on their own. Not one of the artists I have contacted had been contacted by SoundExchange about the list. Now I have no doubt that there were some artists who didn’t follow through after being contacted by SoundExchange. There were a half dozen who promised me they would register on their own who stayed on the list for quite a while, until I contacted them again and reminded them. I guess SoundExchange, which has paid staff supposedly doing this searching and contact on a full-time basis, doesn’t bother to follow up like I did. Like I said, that’s a strange thing about the list.
July 6th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Okay, fair enough. Guess I failed the course on that one.
You are right though by saying that SoundExchange’s pace in finding two artists a week is kind of sad, especially if you can’t “find” the Bay City Rollers in over 25 years while the labels are taking free reign on your hits, licensing them to Planter’s Nuts to use in their commercials.
However, considering that I’ve read Mr. Huey say somewhere that SoundExchange itself is responsible for paying artist roy
July 6th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Pt. 2.(I’ve posted before I was finished, sorry about that)
However, considering that Iâve read Mr. Huey claim somewhere that SoundExchange itself is responsible for paying artist royalties, it is doing a real sloppy job. What is their criteria? Sales? Position on the charts? Popularity with Radio? Or even if the artist even signed with a RIAA label(although that is a moot point with the Bay City Rollers suing Aritsa)?
I do like to see Mr. Huey explain the snails pace that they have been on, and exactly what is their criteria for finding these people.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
You have hit upon another one of the charming mysteries the distance between what SoundExchange says it does, and what it really does.
They have spokespeople like Neeta Ragoowansi, the Direct of Artist and Label Relations give interviews in which she says that if you get one spin on an Internet station, they give you credit for it. Their own FAQ says essentially the same thing.
But then . . .
Last month, John Simson himself exposed those statements as patently incorrect when he admitted that SoundExchange has to use sampling to decide which artists get what. You wan’t find a reference to sampling anywhere on the SoundExchange website, but Mr. Simson claims that it is clear they use it because it was referred to in CRB testimony and exhibits. I guess his point is that everyone should ignore what they say on the website and only believe what they are forced to say under oath. It really isn’t a bad idea, given that the website is wrong and spokespeople like Ms. Ragoowansi and Mr. Huey spread misinformation as well as Simson does, too.
So, right now, the answer to the question of how SoundExchange allocates money among artists is: it’s a secret, and they are going to pretend that they don’t have to guess so nobody will ask how they do it.
Surprised?
I think that the reason why the search for artists has slowed down is because SoundExchange is finding the campaign to stop Congress or the Courts from overturning the CRB rates a very expensive proposition, and they need to tap into all those artist accounts when they give up and “can’t find” them so they can pay the publicists and lawyers without cutting into the regular promotion budget. I mean, it really wouldn’t be fair to the SoundExchange staff to have them give up their Christmas bonuses when all that artist money is just sitting there doing nothing.
By the way, did you know that SoundExchange threw a big showcase party at SXSW in Austin, Texas in March? I’ll bet dozens of people on the “unfound” list showed up and got registered on the spot! Mr. Huey can tell us more about how that party helped artists get paid, even if the bill for the party actually came out of the artists’ pockets.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
SE’s been throwing around the “transparent” word for a while during this whole fracas, and you know what? It’s time they pony up on this one.
Show us a full accounting on SE’s incoming collections and outgoing disbursements, salaries, and the logic behind a random 200-artist list of royalty payments. And while they’re at it, break down how much they’ve spent on lobbying and litigation as opposed to, say, paying employees to find all these ‘lost’ artists they’ve got listed on their site.
If they’re collecting the data, they ought to be able to back their numbers, right? If SE wants to prove it isn’t just a big black box, then it’s time to cough up some numbers – and back it with data. And it’s about time artists groups started calling for the same.