BPI, Music Alliance war continues
p2p news / p2pnet: In the latest move in continuing internecine battle between UK composers and songwriters and the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel, the Music Alliance is demanding to see just how much the labels make out of online sales.
The alliance is the royalty collecting body working for some composers and songwriters and as we wrote recently, it’s all about who gets which piece of the royalties milked from the paltry corporate digital downloads —- after the Big Four have skimmed the cream off the top, of course.
The demand comes in a legal Answer submitted to the UK Copyright Tribunal by the Music Alliance and, “echoes recent comments by Apple’s Steve Jobs that the record industry is being greedy by holding on to established practices, when the world has changed,” it says, going on:
“The Answer is a response to the legal action launched against composers and songwriters by record company trade association the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). This action, launched in June, is an attempt by record companies to halve the amount of royalties due to composers and songwriters from the consumer sale of a download.”
The BPI is yet another of the OM-owned enforcement and propaganda organs set up to front for the OM pirate family, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI.
Backing it in this dispute are seven Digital Service Providers (DSPs) and four of the five main Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), says the alliance.
“Composers and songwriters, the talent that underpins the music industry, currently earn around 5p from the sale of a download,” it states. “BPI proposals would see them earning 2 p. In contrast, record companies keep 40-50p from the same sale.”
Now it’s proposing that as of January 1, “composers and songwriters receive 7-9p per download, to bring their earnings in line with those they might have received in the past.”
Music Alliance says this won’t cost consumers anything. Rather, it’ll be “a cost to be recovered from the enhanced profits currently being enjoyed by record companies as a result of the savings being made from digital distribution. The amount equates to 12% of gross revenues research by the Music Alliance indicates this figure is realistic, fair and easily supported by the current business economics.”
It wants, “Full disclosure of the terms upon which BPI members are licensing providers of Online Services for the use of sound recordings” and “reserves the right to review and revise its own online pricing structure for the comparable composer/songwriter rights in the light of this. Record companies are not transparent in their online deals because there may be a belief that this affords a degree of protection from a similar legal challenge.”
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
Also read:-
wrote recently – Big Music digital download row, December 4, 2005
December 8th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
“Composers and songwriters, the talent that underpins the music industry, currently earn around 5p from the sale of a download,” it states. “BPI proposals would see them earning 2 p. In contrast, record companies keep 40-50p from the same sale.”
How of this money goes to composers and how much to publishers, as proven by audited records, without repeating the crap that songwriters and publishers split the money.
My educated guess is that on aveage the split is somewhere betwee, 75-25 to 95-5, not 50-50, with the big part going to publishers. Sure, some composers get 100 percent because they never gave the freeloader publishers their music. Those are the smart ones.
I know what the numbers are for the USA. Does anyone have the numbers to Britain?
The key to the truth: Audits by a party not paid by the “composer” organization that is really a publisher-composer organization controlled by the publishers.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
March 17th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Hi, just came across this as I was doing some research for my music business degree.
The average split between publishers and writers/composers in the UK is 20/80, with 20% going to the publisher. A different split can be seen in some cases where an unknown is taken on by a major publisher to guaranteed success, (pop-idol style) where the split can be up to 40% for songs where the artist has contributed to the writing, but the days of a 50/50 split has long gone.