p2pnet news view Music | P2P:- “Where do I start?” – asks RIAA-linked SoundExchange.

“God only knows!” – answer thousands of musicians, among them sax player Dan Lauter.

That’s him bottom left and these days, he frequently performs with his son Max, a superb bass player with whom he formed a quartet in 2008. He also now has a spot on DRM-free music download site Amie Street.

Dan, a hard-core jazz musician who’s been playing for 25 years, signed up with Soundexchange, originally a creation of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

It was later spun off as an, “independent, nonprofit performance rights organization …  designated by the U.S. Copyright Office to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for featured recording artists and sound recording copyright owners (usually a record label) when their sound recordings are performed on digital cable and satellite television music, internet and satellite radio (such as XM and Sirius).”

The trouble is, it does its job badly, or not at all, and like scores of others, Dan is still looking for returns from the outfit, which says it represents more than 31,000 featured artists.

But John Simson, the organisation’s front man, apparently admitted SX had, “failed to track down 40,000 other artists,” said Nashville entertainment lawyer Fred Wilhelms last year.

Forty thousand unpaid artists? Yes, said Wilhelms »»»

Wow. They’re paying 31,000. They are not paying 40,000, and they know the names of that 40,000, so God knows how many they miss in sampling that would increase that number.

So who are these people — the ones supposedly acting for, and looking after the best interests of, all these musicians?

Although there may have been changes, here’s what the RIAA, SoundExchange, Gang of Nine looked like in the summer of 2008.

In a p2pnet [un]SoundExchange Project Unfound Artist update, “There are nine ‘artist representatives’ on the SoundExchange board,” said Fred.

“All nine were invited to join the Board by the RIAA. Their absolute silence in the face of such anti-artist conduct as the failure to find and pay 40,000 artists is as clear an indictment of their complicity as anything could be.

“They have betrayed the artists they say they serve.”

Over in Germany, frequent p2pnet poster Alter_Fritz wondered who the nine are.

Answered Fred »»»

Jay L. Cooper, Recording Artists’ Coalition
Kim Roberts Hedgpeth, AFTRA
Patricia Polach, AFM
Daryl P. Friedman – The Recording Academy
Perry Resnick, Music Manager’s Forum
Walter F. McDonough, Future of Music Coalition
Michael Hausman, Michael Hausman Artist Management
Patrick Rains, PRA Management
Jay Rosenthal, Recording Artists’ Coalition

Three managers, three lawyers, two union officers and a guy from the outfit that brings you the Grammys, he said, continuing:

“The union reps are there mostly to legitimize the fund that takes 5% of the royalties for session musicians and back-up singers.

“And before you say ‘Hey, there aren’t any actual artists on there!’, please take note that Michael Hausman was Aimee Mann’s boyfriend once, so I guess that counts for something. He was also the drummer for ‘Til Tuesday at the time.

“Artists did not pick these people, and artists can’t replace them. To be blunt, these folks don’t even have to talk to artists about what they do in the Board Room. The RIAA is letting them sit at the cool kids’ table, and that’s all the legitimacy they need to ‘represent’ artists.

“To believe they are watching out for artists, you have to believe that not finding artists is good for artists, and that forfeiting artist money when they can’t find them is good for artists. And you have to believe that artists will be best served by royalty rates that drive almost all webcasters off the air.”

Not only but also, Fred names the names on the ‘other’ side of the table, to wit »»»

Mitch Bainwol – RIAA
Steven M. Marks – RIAA
Alasdair McMullan – EMI
Andrea Finkelstein – Sony BMG
Michael Ostroff – UMG
Paul Robinson – WMG
Dick Huey – Matador Records
Tom Silverman – Tommy Boy Entertainment LLC
Michael Bengloff – American Association of Independent MusicOnce again, no artists. Vested interests, anyone?

‘… nothing ever translates into USD  ’

I met Dan through a Reader’s Write he left to a p2pnet post in April, 2008, when I ran a long list of artists compiled by  Fred.

The artists on the list are all in the same boat as Dan, which is to say they’ve never seen a thin dime from the SoundExchange.

Later, “I do searches from time to time for my name to see what’s out there,” he told me, going on »»»

Two former releases, Ceremony and Sacred Blueprint had international label exposure and distribution in the trance and transpersonal awareness/new age markets. Both titles are now out of print for several years, but they show up on Amazon and Ebay searches with people having ‘new’ product, as well as used product, and even now as pricey ‘rare’ collectors items.  They could be left over inventory, but it never reaches the artist.  In this digital age there is no way for me to even know.  Both titles also had individual tracks that were included in compilations put out by well known artists like Margot Anand and Gabrielle Roth.

From all of this over the years, I know the tracks are still used and played publicly. I’ve discovered folks using my music for high end massage spa packages, all the way through sound tracks to other people’s original works on peer to peer Vimeo sharing. While my name has been credited, nothing ever translates into USD .  Perhaps in the end there is nothing tangible.  It is nice to know people appreciate aspects of my work.  However it would have also been nice over these years to have received money from commercial entities who use it after market.  

In one search a few years ago, I found my name on a Sound Exchange list, so I contacted them and ultimately registered.  It has done nothing.  Aside from a packet of paperwork whose intent I thought was to recoup user royalties, it never happened that I know of. The Sound Exchange site is also hard to navigate or contact to even check what their records are which I tried to do the other day.  I have resolved over the years that all of these places like ASCAP, BMI, and now Sound Exchange are either industry politically motivated or commercial popularity driven.  They likely only serve those who by what ever means get their notice and attention. 

They do not appear to have the ability to accurately represent actual independent artists and the reality of how their works are being used out there. 

No kidding.

We’ll give them a hand. Again.

Last year we found some of the UnSoundExchange’s missing artists, and we’re determined to find more this year because as Fred sums it up, “It ain’t over”.

As of today, the first day of the New year, the “found” tally stands at 2,694, says Fred.

“Taken at face value, that means that in the five months since the Project wound down, SoundExchange has found FIVE artists out of 7,555 on the list.”

Five out of 7,555? Good job, UnSoundExchange.

Fred goes on »»»

Back last April, Jon Newton and I kicked off ‘Project Unfound Artist’ here on p2pnet.

We were prompted by a public comment made by John Simson that SoundExchange was holding money for over 40,000 artists it hadn’t been able to locate.  This was quite a jump from the 7,874 names that SoundExchange listed on its website, and the larger number apparently reflected all the artists that weren’t (yet) facing forfeiture of all or part of their money.

Simson and SoundExchange spent a lot of time telling anyone who’d listen about the great job they were doing in finding people, and how hard it was to do.  In the six months prior to the start of the project, SoundExchange, left mostly to its own devices, had been able to remove a couple dozen names.  I say ‘left mostly to their own devices’ because I sent them a bunch myself during that time.

We decided to give them a hand. Jon printed that list of 7,874

The P2P community responded.  People like Brian Hance put their imaginations to work on how to find people.  A bunch of DJs from Live365 pitched in.  There were dozens of others working by themselves.  It helped a lot that the people everyone was looking for weren’t really hiding, but it quickly became clear that we were doing what SoundExchange either couldn’t do, or wouldn’t do.

Between April 4 and July 25, 2008, SoundExchange took 317 names off the ‘unfound artist’ list.

That was about five times better than SoundExchange was able to do in the same amount of time previous to the start of the project.

Although I’d optimistically set a target of 1,000 names, a couple things happened in July that prompted a premature end to the project.

Several webcasters had asked me personally to dial back the anti-SoundExchange rhetoric while the private rate negotiations were going on.  It was felt it would be counterproductive to divide their attention between the rates and dealing with the public relations fiasco that the Project was for them.  I agreed.  Just as important, however, was the apparent SoundExchange decision to stop updating the ‘unfound artist’ list at the end of July.  Although I knew that new registrations were continuing to be submitted.  The ‘found’ artist tally seemed to get stuck at 2,689.  It was as if SoundExchange decided it was better that no one know how many artists had registered.

As of January 1, 2009, the ‘found’ tally stands at 2,694.  Taken at face value, that means that in the five months since the Project wound down, SoundExchange has found FIVE artists out of 7,555 on the list.  That’s a rate of one-per-month.

It’s time to get back to work, and this time we’re going to be bit more organized about it.

SoundExchange hasn’t publicly announced when the next forfeiture of artist money will happen.  

As far as anyone knows, it’s been done several times without the slightest public notice, and I suspect the worst as far as that goes.  

This has to stop.

So, we’re looking for people who are willing to commit a couple hours to heading up coordinated searches and contacts for all those artists still on the list.  

We’ll divide up the list into more manageable chunks, get some people to focus on MySpace and Facebook, where there are hundreds of groups and artists still on the list.  

We’ll come up with some standardized contact materials so we don’t sound like we’re running some scam.  We’ll coordinate reaching out to other online communities, message boards and blogs, especially those that focus on genres and styles outside the mainstream.

The p2pnet community says it loves the artists and hates the business.  

Every artist that comes off the list is a well-deserved slap in the face to the RIAA puppets at SoundExchange.

As Fred says, it’s time we put our mouths where the money is.

We’ve got the numbers. So who’s in?

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Music, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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