Yes, ARTISTS do.
But, as pointed out many times, because of one sided contracts
and monopolistic, cartel-like control, The record labels prevent
the artists from being paid. The LABELS do not have a god-given
right to get rich as “middlemen”.

Every time you read an RIAA sponsored propoganda piece,
replace the word ‘artist’ with the word ‘Copyright Holder’
The COPYRIGHT HOLDER is the one the labels are protecting.
In public, the RIAA mouthpieces say .. ‘artist’. In COURT however,
in front of judges, they ALWAYS say Copyright holder.
Why is that ???
The LABELS hold the copyrights.

Why don’t they say that publicly ??
They need us to just assume that Copyright Holder = Artist.
They don’t want us to know that this is one of their biggest,
and most damaging lies.

Actually they are a “publisher” group money collectiion organization.
Almost all the money collected is paid to publisher and almot all the monet collected by publishers go to publisher bank accounts and stay there.

For many years (up to present) up 27 songs allegedly (at least one was not composed by my father – it was stolen from some unknown songwriter) composed by my father were listed in BMI’s repertoire, placed there mostly by a pulisher (Peermusic, one of the big ones) who obtained most of the the songs, using their own words in a confidential letter we got our hands on, “without the author suspecting”. Many of these the songs were performed widely on radio here in Puerto Rico under a BMI license. My father, I believe, never received a cent from that. We heirs also did not receive a cent from those performances either for a period of over 12 years, from the music publishers.

The stories I hear from other songwriters are just as bad. They hardly ever see any of the money collected by the alleged “songwriter societies, the collectives”. No one audits th publisher’s accounting either.

The entire publisher-collectives arrngement is just a scheme with these major characteristis:
- The repertoire of the so called songwriter collectives is not given to licensees. So they actually get a blind license. They cannot see what they get.
- The paperwork and alleged sampling is all “secret”.
- The accounting at the collective and at the publishers is also all “secret”.
- How money disbursed is all “secret”.
- The allegedly competing collectives (ASCAP and BMI) share directors from the same publisher companies. Clearly there is collusion here and not competition as is claimed.

In the meantime, all the songwriters get is the shaft.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

Do you have a suggestion for paying public education, policemen, public hospitals, the military, the government. the courts, etc?

“Artists don’t have a “right” to benefit from their work. If no one wants to pay for it, sorry, don’t make any more.”

Who says no one wants to pay for artist’s work? As a matter of fact people do want to pay for something to get more of that something, such as art, education, museums, security, etc. ? Actually is is dis

And what if people want to pay through their government?

Now, if your governments is like most governmnets, you probably have a valid beef but the solution is to fix government, not end government. Of course the problem here is people’s apathy, as most people want their government problems to just go away on their own or are waiting for the politicians and others to fix things up. The problem being that the politicians and others want to keep things as they are because they have figured out how to milk the people under the current system.

Now, if you had stated “most politicians are evil” you may have been right.

Just my comments.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

LOL.

They’ve stolen billions. If you’ve shared or downloaded a few files, you haven’t stolen anything. & even if you do think you have, in the general scheme of things, I doubt you’re going to hell.

Unless hell is run by musicians…

I would love to see EXACTLY who was paid.

I doubt very seriously that will happen.

But then again …..

BMI is a songwriters “group”.
They SEEM to be the RIAA of writers.
They are EXPERTS at screwing people with the law.

Mr. Venegas, a regular here has a great deal more expertise than
I in the inner workings of these shady bastards.
If he has some time, I am sure he will explain why BMI is no better
( possibly far worse ) than the RIAA.

Can any verify this or is it a plain lie?

Klimax

Let’s not forget the most important – MAKE SOMETHING WORTH LISTENING TO!!!!

Regarding your other points: others also don’t like this taxing idea:
http://tinyurl.com/fyjqo
(a blog entry)

My only problem with any levy ….

The Artists are STILL not getting compensated.

Remember, Artist does NOT always = Copyrightholder.
In fact, it almost NEVER does.

Copyright holder = Major label … in nearly every case.

And we all know just how well they do when it comes to
compensating the Artist.

All this baloney about the “artist” coming from the record label
is just that .. Baloney.

How many “artists” have been compensated with the extortion
money collected in the lawsuits ?

Are the Industry accountants willing to document just how many
( and EXACTLY WHICH ) “artists” have been compensated through EXISTING blank media levies in Canada and US ?

I doubt it.

Is there a way provided to compensate artists that are outside the
Big Media Cartels ??

Any Levy is pure bull. It allows the Cartels to continue business
as usual.

It’s time to change. Like it or not.

Call me narrow minded if you like.
But, let me ask ….
Just how willing to compromise have the media giants shown
thenselves to be ?
They don’t WANT compromise, they want absolute control . period.
They have proven time and time again they will use ANY means
necessary to get it. Form bullying individual to paying GOVERNMENTS to bully other governments, to buying laws and lawmakers.
There is no compromise from them.
They won’t give.
We should’t either.

If they REALLY want compromise …
1. STOP SUING .. NOW.
Drop every case . EVERY case ..that they are pursuing.
2. STOP USING DRM.
It doesn’t work, it’s a waste of their money, NO CUSTOMER
WANTS IT. If it can be seen or heard, it WILL be copied.
It has been stated many times, on many sites, A REASONABLE
price, and NO DRM wil get customers buying again.
3. STOP LYING.
It is obvious when you compare the most dowloaded, to
the biggest SELLERS that there is NO LOSS OF REVENUE
from P2P. P2P has ZERO effect on sales.. Zero ..Zip ..Nada
Admit it.

Maybe then, we can talk