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Trouble is it's all pretty hard to judge when you don't actually know the overheads for the iTunes store, nor how the profit margin on an iTunes song is split.

Facts for at least TuneCore as my facilitator for putting music for sale on itunes: I get 70 cents per track, Apple keeps 29 cents. Out of my 70 cents, I pay all the costs: the storage fee at Tunecore, the costs of recording (musicians, studio time, whatever), and the royalty to the songwriters (currently, 9.2 cents for up to 5 minutes of song length, statutory).

I have essentially the same deal as a record company, except I have no bargaining power with the song writer, record companies do.

I don't know if this new proposal will mean that Apple is paying the royalty collection agency directly (not the case now), or just that the royalty rate is going up and the payment scheme (usually through Harry Fox Agency for me) mechanism stays the same.

If I record other people music (mechanical license), Apple taking care of paying the song writer's royalties would be more convenient, and I'd get 55 cents per song rather than 70; if I record my OWN music, having to collect my royalties from a third party would be a pain in the rear as an indie.

Anyone know if the proposed royalty change involves a change in payment methodology?

Eddie O
 
Move along everyone, nothing to see here.

Why is anyone talking about a veiled threat made 18 months ago?!?

So much has changed since then. Apple isn't going to close the store over a few cents in royalties.
 
Apple isn't going to close the store over a few cents in royalties.

To date since it opened, 6 cents per song sold on iTunes comes to around $300 million.

At the rate songs are selling at present, 6 cents per song comes to around $120 million a year.

I wouldn't call that a few cents in royalties.
 
I couldn't care less..!

I buy vinyl only and then check Beatport or Boomkat for the hi-res (320k and DRM-free!!!) MP3s from the original masters in order to listen to the tunes on my iPod.

If I cannot get the MP3s from those two sources online (and if I happen to be too lazy to record my vinyl copy) I just download the files from the filesharing-program of my choice.

I won't pay a single penny for the craptastic artists on iTMS or Amazon (especially not at craptastic bitrates). If you cannot get a decent album out on vinyl, you won't get my hard earned cash. Simple as that.

vSpacken

Now there's a man after my own heart. Keep vinyl alive. I don't use Beatport or Boomshat though, used to buy vinyl from the latter, but not any more.

Oh and at all those people comparing "stealing" music to stealing a laptop/car/whatever, sorry, but there's not a court in the land who could agree with you for one second. There's a very large difference between theft and copyright infringement. The Theft Act 1968 puts it like this:

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it

which obviously DOESN'T apply to downloading music/films/TV, as you're not depriving anyone of their property, intellectual or not.
 
Now there's a man after my own heart. Keep vinyl alive. I don't use Beatport or Boomshat though, used to buy vinyl from the latter, but not any more.

Oh and at all those people comparing "stealing" music to stealing a laptop/car/whatever, sorry, but there's not a court in the land who could agree with you for one second. There's a very large difference between theft and copyright infringement. The Theft Act 1968 puts it like this:



which obviously DOESN'T apply to downloading music/films/TV, as you're not depriving anyone of their property, intellectual or not.

You ARE permanently depriving them of the MONEY that they are owed under law. How about if someone "borrows" my car for the after noon, then returns it, and putting back the gas he used? Still car theft.

If you don't want to pay the artists for their work, great, don't listen to it, or learn the song when it comes on the radio, and play it to yourself.

But copying music which you don't already own is stealing, plain and simple. One can only hope that one day, you invent something, or do something creative, and decide you want to get paid for your labors. And then it gets appropriated by everyone and you get zero. Then you'll whine.

Eddie O
 
I've never seen any hard facts to support the claim that its illegal downloads that are causing the decline in music sales. There are other explanations such as the decline in popularity of albums (as you can pick just the tracks you want from download stores),

Or, you can just download those tracks from limewire, bearshare, etc....
Which i'm sure there are a lot of folks that do. The same people that used to pay for that music.

they aren't getting as many sales from customers moving to the latest format (everyone bought CD's to replace their LP's, not many will buy downloads to replace their CD's)

That sounds valid. Fair enough.

and maybe people just don't want to buy as much music today as they used to.

Maybe....but maybe not. I still buy the same amount of music. I collected a lot of cd's in the 90's. But i have way more music than i ever have had right now, thanks to digital music. And the best part is, that i can carry all of this music in my front pocket! But i understand not everyone has an mp3 player.

I don't have any hard facts in front of me, but i find it very hard to believe that the illegal downloading of millions of songs(other people's intellectual property), hasn't hurt record sales at all.

The major labels have also totally screwed themselves by the way they've managed the switch to download sales. Even today they're still trying to control and manipulate the market which they still don't realise is doing them more harm than good - three of the four majors are still refusing to supply high quality non-DRM tracks to Apple for example.

The good news is the days of the majors are limited and within 5-10 years they'll most likely be stuck trying to sell their ageing back catalogue.


I totally agree. I hope it doesn't take 5-10 more years for them to go away. I want them to go away sooner.

Don't get me wrong, when i said you "can't call these guys greedy bastards," i wasn't talking about the major record labels. They are greedy bastards. But this is about the copyright owners(publishers/songwriters). They've never gotten their fair share to begin with. So i can empathize with that.

Nobody has said that this increased royalty will come out of the consumers pocket. Although that's where the record labels will probably try to get it from so they don't have to pay the extra to the songwriters themselves. As someone else stated, if the major labels would just restructure themselves a bit(which they're trying) and stop putting hundred of thousands of dollars (if not millions) into a release before it even comes out, they could afford to pay the extra royalty.
 
I collected a lot of cd's in the 90's. But i have way more music than i ever have had right now, thanks to digital music. And the best part is, that i can carry all of this music in my front pocket! But i understand not everyone has an mp3 player.

I don't have any hard facts in front of me, but i find it very hard to believe that the illegal downloading of millions of songs(other people's intellectual property), hasn't hurt record sales at all.

I think you've hit on another reason for declining music sales with your first comment above - digital copies of music on your computer or mp3 player makes it easy to have your entire music collection available all the time. Before, you'd buy some cd's, listen to them, get bored of them, buy some more and so on with the ones you got bored of gathering dust and not getting played much again.

That doesn't happen now - you can easily access all the music on your cd's once they've been ripped. Why buy a new cd when you've got lots of older songs you haven't listened to in a while.

Copying music isn't a new thing either. People used to copy music cd's, they used to copy tapes, make compilation tapes, tape the radio and so on. Besides, there are hard facts on the effect pirate copies of cd's have on sales and pretty much every expert agrees they're more of a problem than illegal downloads.
 
Oh and at all those people comparing "stealing" music to stealing a laptop/car/whatever, sorry, but there's not a court in the land who could agree with you for one second.
Actually, there are. Pick up any opinion on the subject, and the casual, non-legal term "stealing" appears all over it as a mode of discussion. This is even more rampant in European courts, given that their underlying rationale is artist-oriented, unlike the US. Since 'stealing' is not a crime, however, it doesn't matter all that much.
There's a very large difference between theft and copyright
What you're missing is that there's a very large difference between stealing and theft, too.
which obviously DOESN'T apply to downloading music/films/TV, as you're not depriving anyone of their property, intellectual or not.
Yes, you are. As a copyright holder, you have the exclusive right to make and to authorize copies of your work, to distribute them under your terms, and several other reserved rights. Anyone who violates that right is asserting the legal authority to do so, thereby depriving you of that exclusive right.

Because the property is the copyright itself, asserting a copyright power is taking it from the author. Unauthorized acquisition is stealing.

There's no way in which it is not stealing. By most statutes, however, it cannot be charged as theft. Fortunately, it's irrelevant, because there's a whole litany of other "stealing" charges that can be levied, copyright infringement being the easiest. Unjust enrichment is also popular in certain circumstances. Theft, too, sometimes applies.
 
I appreciate the attempt, but it's not true. The mechanical royalty is a compulsory license owed for the reproduction of a work that has been fixed and previously published by the author. It is the royalty paid by cover bands and the license in question here for distribution of sound recordings containing the musical work. The mechanical royalty is so named because it permits the distributions of lawful recordings (putting the work to a recorded medium by machine) of the underlying work by individuals other than the author of the work, through, as mentioned, covers and through re-mastering for digital distribution. The mechanical royalty is owed by anyone who is recording or distributing a work to which they do not own the musical copyright. See 17 USC 115. "Digital phonorecord delivery" includes Internet radio.
I'm glad you cleared that up, in your previous post you had mentioned bands playing the work and radio performances, which as you know are performance licenses (issued in general to the venue or radio station by ASCAP, BMI, etc.) I didn't catch the internet radio or the fact that you used the term "cover band" in a way not commonly used. In the biz a "cover band" is a band that "covers" the hits at a bar or other venue.
Good work as usual.
Thanks for the lesson on mechanicals, although I have been in publishing since the early 70s and am well aware of the law as well as the history of copyright law in the US and outside the US as well.
 
You ARE permanently depriving them of the MONEY that they are owed under law. How about if someone "borrows" my car for the after noon, then returns it, and putting back the gas he used? Still car theft.

But you haven't stolen money from the artist, you've infringed their copyright. The reason that downloaders don't get arrested for theft is because, as I said, they haven't stolen anything, and the prosecuting authorities know full well they'd be wasting their time trying it.

Your example of borrowing a car is covered by the same legislation:

6.‘With the intention of permanently depriving the other of it’
(1)A person appropriating property belonging to another without meaning the other permanently to lose the thing itself is nevertheless to be regarded as having the intention of permanently depriving the other of it if his intention is to treat the thing as his own to dispose of regardless of the other’s rights; and a borrowing or lending of it may amount to so treating it if, but only if, the borrowing or lending is for a period and in circumstances making it equivalent to an outright taking or disposal

From http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cach...201968.pdf+theft+act&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

Actually, there are.

Please tell me which courts call this stealing.

Since 'stealing' is not a crime ... What you're missing is that there's a very large difference between stealing and theft, too.

Since when is stealing not a crime?

Steal, theft, they mean the same thing in the eyes of the law, and in most peoples eyes AFAIK. Again, quoting from the Theft Act:

..and ‘theft’ and ‘steal’ shall be construed accordingly.

Yes, you are. As a copyright holder, you have the exclusive right to make and to authorize copies of your work, to distribute them under your terms, and several other reserved rights. Anyone who violates that right is asserting the legal authority to do so, thereby depriving you of that exclusive right.
Because the property is the copyright itself, asserting a copyright power is taking it from the author. Unauthorized acquisition is stealing.

Sorry, but wrong. 'Fair use' also grants the average Joe a right to make copies for himself, amongst other groups of people who copy music. Hence why RIAA etc. aren't threatening to take anyone who rips their CDs into digital files to court. I'm not for one minute suggesting that what I and millions of others do could be construed as fair use. I'm just trying to demonstrate that they are not totally exclusive rights, and this is why there is so much confusion regarding this. The property being "stolen", for want of a better word ;) isn't the copyright, it's the intellectual property, the music/film/whatever. You are infringing the copyright holders rights.

Here's an article that explains it better than I can:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07/28/copying_is_theft_and_other/

In simple terms, you deprive someone of their property permanently when they no longer have that property. If I download something illegally, the record label/author/copyright holder have not lost that property. They maybe lost a potential sale (although personally, when I download something illegally and like it, I buy it, on a tangible format, so they've lost nothing, from me at least; same with software and films), but they still own their song, the rights to it. I've infringed their copyright, I've made an illegal copy of it.

It's like this: if I could go up to a car parked on the street and make a copy of that car by touching it or using some magical device, that car would still be parked on the street, and I could happily drive that copied car, while the original owner would also be able to drive the original car. No-one has lost anything. The car company would be pretty pissed that I don't need to go into the car showroom and buy a car; they have lost a potential sale. No doubt, the car companies would be lobbying the Government to make it illegal to "steal" that car, when the car hasn't been stolen, merely copied.


Now, don't get me wrong: I've downloaded thousands of tracks illegally since I discovered Napster many moons ago. I've also bought thousands of records/CDs/tapes/files in my life, going back to when I was about 10 years old. I still buy records on a monthly basis. If anything, file-sharing has only made my interest in and deep love of music even greater. It allowed me to listen to stuff that I wouldn't have taken a chance on in the record shop (remember those?). I buy more music now than I've ever done before, because I have an even greater knowledge than I could ever have hoped to have without file-sharing. I totally respect artists right to make a living (unlike some people in this thread, and millions of people around the world, no doubt), and I support good music. A very small % of the music I listen to/own is available on iTunes. Bleep.com, now there's a fine digital music store, one I've used in the past and intend to continue supporting (when vinyl isn't available at a reasonable price).

Downloading music isn't theft, by anyone's definition of the word. When Metallica scream that they can't afford another gold-plated swimming pool in their mansion because the kids are stealing their music, or when you see that annoying short film on a DVD (that you actually bought, the pirated ones don't have them on there for some reason) telling you that downloading films is stealing, they are using the wrong word.
 
The board also set a new rate of 24 cents for each ringtone.

24 cents for a ringtone? :eek: What was that previously? Why would that be higher than for a song, when the ringtone is typically much shorter?
 
I'm glad you cleared that up, in your previous post you had mentioned bands playing the work and radio performances
Could you point me toward the misunderstanding? I'd like to edit it for future readers.
In the biz a "cover band" is a band that "covers" the hits at a bar or other venue.
Yes, that's a cover band. What I'm referring to are covers, the songs. Say you're Britney Spears and you want to do a cover of, say, Oasis. You can do so on your next CD, so long as you pay this royalty to the songwriters of that Oasis song.
Please tell me which courts call this stealing.
"In either case, to categorically refuse to extend copyright protection to a three-dimensional manifestation of Winfield's witch is to allow a competitor theoretically to steal Winfield's precise expression of its creative vision..." Winfield still has his expression. Winfield v. Gemmy, 147 Fed.Appx. 547, 553 (2005).

"Thomas Whitehead will do no jail time for pirating a million dollars worth of “access cards” and selling them on the internet to persons who used them to steal satellite television service from DirecTV." DirecTV hasn't lost anything there. U.S. v. Whitehead, 532 F.3d 991, 994 (2008).

"In addition to the increased costs for protection from burglary, wire-tapping, bribery, and the other means used to misappropriate trade secrets, there is the inevitable cost to the basic decency of society when one firm steals from another." In that case, the harmed company still had everything it had before; the only thing it lost was an exclusive right. Kewanee Oil v. Bicron, 416 U.S. 470, 487 (1974).

"With or without right, the earlier trademark was in widespread use and well known, and the obvious intent and necessary effect of imitating it was to steal some of the good will attaching to it and to defraud the public." With a trademark, the infringement doesn't prevent the first company from using it; it still has everything it had before, save the exclusive use of the trademark. Ubeda v. Zialcita, 226 U.S. 452, 454 (1913).

There's a few examples, including IP beyond copyright. 'Steal' is a casual term, not a legal charge. It is not a term of art, and it is a statutorily-defined term only when the cause of action arises under that same statute.
Since when is stealing not a crime?
Since always. The crimes are: theft, theft of service, larceny, unjust enrichment, misappropriation, fraud, and so on.

Steal is a word that has many uses and definitions, only one of which is synonymous with 'theft', a legal term of art with a carefully-constructed definition.
Steal, theft, they mean the same thing in the eyes of the law
No. You cannot be charged with stealing. In Britain, the Theft Act (why you're using the 1968 version is unclear, since the applicable law is from 2006) codifies a variety of 'stealing' offenses into a single statute.
Sorry, but wrong. 'Fair use' also grants the average Joe a right to make copies for himself, amongst other groups of people who copy music.
No. Fair use, under US copyright law, allows no such thing.
The property being "stolen", for want of a better word ;) isn't the copyright, it's the intellectual property, the music/film/whatever.
The intellectual property is the copyright, not the intellectual work. This is something anti-IP trolls do not understand, Stallman included. Your IP exactly comprises the set of property rights you own. The ideas in the "music/film/whatever" are not property in any sense.
Here's an article that explains it better than I can:
The Register is incorrect. The first clue is the wanton switching from a legal term of art (theft) to a lay term of no legal significance (stealing). Your own theft act has to add the section because it is so frequently misused. The explanation of the fair use doctrine is also laughably incomplete.

Your ridiculous car-copying hypothetical assumes that if such a copying device existed, that you would have a legal right to reproduce any object you wish with it. We have never observed that to be the case with the introduction of any new technology; there's no reason to think it would start now. If such a device existed, the car company would undoubtedly retain an exclusive right to the production of its vehicles. In fact, copyright would be one of the mechanisms they would use. Your duplication of the car would in any case still be illegal.
Downloading music isn't theft, by anyone's definition of the word.
No kidding. Wantonly flipping in and out of theft and stealing, though, is the construction of an untenable strawman. Stealing is a simple term: it is the taking of something to which you are not legally entitled. There's nothing else to it. Stealing is not theft, but theft is stealing.

In fact, if you turn to your own citations to Britain's Theft Act, look to section 3, Making off without payment: "(1)Subject to subsection (3) below, a person who, knowing that payment on the spot for any goods supplied or service done is required or expected from him, dishonestly makes off without having paid as required or expected and with intent to avoid payment of the amount due shall be guilty of an offence."
When Metallica [tells] you that downloading films is stealing, they are using the wrong word.
No, but you are. Stealing is a descriptive word. It is not in the United States, nor anywhere else, a criminal or civil charge.

You build up an argument that it is neither theft nor larceny. That is true. You cannot in the last sentence change the word to 'steal' and expect the argument to continue to hold.
 
IMO
Once the "so called Intellectual Property" has been "released" to the "Either" is no longer is "Owned" and you may do with it as you want. IMO

The party releasing the "So called Intellectual Property" must have the right to release it and may have to pay a fee to do so. IMO

The origional owner of the "So called Intellectual Property" does in the fases of Sound and Videos and most written documents creates the "Material" with the expectation that the Material will be "used" otherwise their is no reason to creat it. Once the "Material" has been purchased by a new owner to expect that they the past owner then has the "right" to restrict the "material" after they have transferred it to the new owner is unreasonable. Mush like saying I may only use the purchased car for my sole use and not let others use it. Or that I may not whisle the tune I hear on a CD. The complets essance of "Copy Right" is to give credit as to who created it not not restrict it use in any way. If I use you word in my book I should give you credit for having created then but I have the right to free use. IMO
 
You ARE permanently depriving them of the MONEY that they are owed under law. How about if someone "borrows" my car for the after noon, then returns it, and putting back the gas he used? Still car theft.

If you don't want to pay the artists for their work, great, don't listen to it, or learn the song when it comes on the radio, and play it to yourself.

But copying music which you don't already own is stealing, plain and simple. One can only hope that one day, you invent something, or do something creative, and decide you want to get paid for your labors. And then it gets appropriated by everyone and you get zero. Then you'll whine.

Eddie O
If you download something without paying for it, you don't owe them any money by law - unless you know a law I'm unaware of?

Comparing any of this to car theft is idiotic.

If it comes on the radio, and I use my radio to record the song to tape, what now?

Who's whining here? I don't see that many artists whining about more people hearing their music, just the labels who are getting pissy because they've not adapted. More music is being bought and listened to than ever before - a lot of labels and huge music industry giants aren't seeing it as it's going directly to the artist or the band simply isn't under the umbrella of any of those multi-national music companies.
 
why are we still discussing this? they aren't raising royalties...iTunes isn't closing. the dilemma is no longer:apple::apple::apple:
 
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