Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan joins the RIAA
p2pnet news view RIAA News | Music:- “Despite all the highminded statements entered into the record by the sponsors of the bill and the other members of the Judiciary Committee regarding the need to protect the interests of artists, this bill does nothing for them, and testimony by Corgan and other label mouthpieces in support of the current bill are nothing short of betrayal of all artists.”
‘Corgan’ is Billy Corgan, and the quote comes from Nashville entertainment lawyer Fred Wilhelms on radio performance royalties.
But before we get to that, “Good article in ‘Swan Fungus’ about Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, the RIAA’s dancing monkey,” says Recording Industry vs The People.
Swan Fungus boasts it’s all about, “biting social commentary, apolitical discourse, non-conformity and low-brow humor,” and in The Great Pumpkin Goes To Congress (from whence came the pic on the right) states Corgan, “the frowning prince,” sent a letter to several members of Congress saying that the potential Ticketmaster / Live Nation merger is a good idea.
So why, wonders Swan Fungus, is Corgan arguing for Ticketmaster?
“Well, that`s easy,” it says. His manager is Ticketmaster owner Irving Azoff and in the letter to congress, Corgan says:
“This is a new model that puts power into the hands of the artist, creating a dynamic synergy that will inspire great works and attract healthy competition.”
But, really Billy? – says the post, “Azoff convinced you that you would be in a position of power if this merger is allowed to occur? I really don`t think that`s going to happen. It’s sad to see a somewhat intelligent person manipulated to such a degree, but knowing what I know about Mr. Corgan, I am not the least bit surprised.”
‘The Great Pumpkin has aligned himself with villains and criminals …’
Re: our quote from Fred, “Billy boy went before Congress last week along with RIAA chairmen and CEO Mitch Bainwol as part of the hearing on the Performance Rights Act,” says Swan Fungus, continuing »»»
If you don`t know what that is, it`s a proposed law that would require radio stations to pay royalties to the musicians who play on the songs they broadcast. America is one of the few countries in the world that doesn`t already do this, but of course that never seemed to matter until the dinosaurs working for the RIAA completely fucked up the music industry. So that makes two instances already this month in which the Great Pumpkin has aligned himself with villains and criminals. One would think that it would be easy enough to stand in opposition against a a group of people who sue 10 year-old and 13-year old girls. But sweet, innocent mongoloid Billy Corgan can be coerced into anything, apparently. It mattered not that he was aligning himself with an organization facing RICO charges, charges of overt unlawful acts and collusion charges, or that the RIAA was withholding $400 million dollars in settlement money from its artists, Corgan was still willing to go before Congress to defend them. What an amiable dumb piece of shit that guy is.
His statement is posted in the Smashing Pumpkins website.
Swan Fungus goes on »»»
Just for kicks, here are two quotes from the other person who spoke before Congress, Mitch Bainwol:
This issue isn`t as complicated as the broadcasters suggest, Bainwol told the committee. On the contrary, it`s pretty simple when you get down to it. This year radio will spin almost a billion songs in the United States, leading to billions in revenue from advertising. The payment to artists and labels for use of those recordings, however, will not amount even to a penny. – Don`t listen to their fuzzy logic about how they could go out of business if forced to pay double money to people like Billy Corgan, think about the fact that they play music all day and and all night and only pay certain people involved, not everybody involved.
Half of the payments will go directly to the performers, by statute, regardless of any other contracts Radio station to SoundExchange to the artists and musicians – period. – And suddenly this charade is made much more clear.
“How pathetic,” the story says, adding:
“Everyone involved in these stories is lower than low. Scum of the earth. 8.1% of Americans (that`s about, what, 30 million people?) are out of work right now and these pieces of human waste are asking for their own personal government bailouts because they broke their own system and cannot fix it. I say let them fail.”
betrayal of all artists – The value of airplay, March 12, 2009
Recording Industry vs The People – Good article about Billy Corgan doing the bidding of his RIAA slave masters, March 17, 2009
Swan Fungus – The Great Pumpkin Goes To Congress, March 16, 2009
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March 18th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Mitch Bainwol is flat out lying when he says that half the license revenue will go to artists âregardless of any other contracts.â
The current language of the bill before Congress guarantees the 50% for artists only if the broadcaster agrees to the statutory license rates and do not attempt to negotiate a lower overall rate. If they negotiate a lower rate, ALL the money goes to the label and they get to pay the artist âaccording to their contracts.â
Do you think ClearChannel is not going to look to reduce itâs overall royalty obligation by negotiating a lower rate, say at 75% of the statutory rate?
Do you think the labels arenât going to agree to that 75% rate when they get to keep almost all that money, rather than just the 50% of the full statutory rate?
The only ones screwed by this arrangement are the artists. Billy Corgan has betrayed all artists by speaking up for this scam.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I wish more musicians would pull their heads out of their asses and smell the coffee. Far to many only want to focus on “the music” and ignore the business aspect, which in the shark filled entertainment world is like dropping the soap in a prison shower. Idiots like Corgan and Metallica insure that the RIAA will be ripping off musicians for years to come.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
ya know maybe that explains why artists are scalping htere own tickets but at the prices they already are GOOD god people even 30% of 200000 is more hten most of us make in an entire year
OR in my case 12 years
March 18th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Well, there’s yet another (entirely-predictable) incidence of “Selling out”. Sonny Bono, Lars Ulrich, Satriani, and now Corgan.
All for different reasons, but they ALL turned out to ultimately be rat bastards:
Sonny Bono became the RIAA’s posterboy by claiming that “copyright is forever minus a day.” In doing so, he proved that he was NOT ONLY a talentless jackass, but completely ignorant about the history and purpose of copyright law itself. (In other words, just what his RIAA puppet-masters needed.)
Lars Ulrich’s hypocrisy is a bit different, since Metallica had pretty-much created their fanbase around being “taper-friendly” and encouraging their fans to turn other people onto Metallica’s stuff as well. Then to come out against something like Napster (which represents the exact same paradigm via better technology), is just ludicrous. Also, the spectacle of a heavy-metal band (who are at least implicitly somewhat “anti-establishment”) desperately fellating the State was….ironic?
Satriani is a no-talent hasbeen for yet another reason: suing Coldplay because their riff is sorta, kinda, similar conclusively demonstrates that he’s ignorant of how music works. Either that, or he’s just a money-grubbing scumbag. (Take your pick.)
Corgan is actually kinda sad, because he came up riding the “Grunge” and Alternative-rock thing. There’s a definite “anti-corporate” strain running through that whole scene, and for him to become Bainwol’s “dancing monkey” (I LOVE that term!) is pretty sad.
March 20th, 2009 at 4:27 am
They can copyright anything Sonny Bono did for 1,000 years or more, if they want.
Nobody would buy it anyway.