p2pnet.net News Feature:- Recording artists in California will soon be able to conduct annual audits on any record company doing business in the state.
Yesterday, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 1304 which in effect gives artists a way to compel the labels to allow searches for unpaid royalties.
New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office recently found the Big Five record labels hadn’t been paying many of their artists and writers. This affected both star entertainers with numerous hit recordings “and obscure musicians who may have had only one recording,” said Spitzer. The labels were ordered to pay $50 million to musicians they’d had under contract.
And it seems one of the Big Five – Warner Bros – tried hard to screw elderly Sam Moore of ‘Soul Man’ and ‘Hold On! I’m Comin’ fame out of his pension. Now Moore is one of several music industry veterans suing Sony, Universal, BMG, Warner and EMI for failure to make or report royalties to their retirement funds.
In the meanwehile, the new California law also “holds down the cost of audits through means such as letting a single auditor work for several artists on the same label simultaneously,” says an Associated Press story here.
Before SB 1034, the right to audit which existed in the record industry was, “approaching the same level of abstraction as the right to vote did in the Deep South before the Civil Rights Act,” said AFTRA ( American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) president John Connolly told the California Legislature recently.
“Artist royalty rates are typically set around 12 percent to 16 percent of sales,” says the AP report. “But before any of the royalties reach an artist, they must usually cover promotion, production, packaging and other expenses. In addition, the labels withhold large percentages to cover discounts they offer to retailers as well as reserves for any returned goods.
“Up to this point, artists have faced the choice between paying for expensive audits, possibly uncovering less money than the cost of the audit, or not conducting the audits and losing out on royalties.”
Well – that takes care of California.
How many other states are there?
