Music Publishers and Writers Lobbying Congress for Additional Compensation for Digital Distribution

[DipDog3]

Worthless.

Why whine to the government to get more money?

 

[theneweyes]

I think what irritates most artists is that apple's revenue is going through the roof with iTunes while the artist's commission is increasingly going down with development of internet services. And you guys are saying accept this because you went into the music industry? Why? Would you accept your boss docking your pay every year?

 

[mickhyperion]

Maybe they should renegotiate their contracts with the labels then, as opposed to forcing consumers in to handing them even more money? If they want more money, maybe they should only sign contracts that give them more money?

That's exactly what this news story is about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[igorleandro]

Listen, don't bitch to me about "writers make next to nothing". Same as waiters/waitresses....don't bitch to me about "you need to tip this much because they only get paid $2.15 per hour".

It's their OWN CHOICE to do that job and they know damn well how much they are getting paid.

I have no sympathy for people who CHOOSE to do jobs that pay very little. Go get an education and apply for higher paying jobs.....not a writer or waiter.

Now, with that said, I think if they begin to get charge-happy with digital content on iTunes and even go as far as charging for 30-second samples, I'll be more than happy to hit the torrent sites. I don't care.

Yep, I totally agree. There is a very delicate balance between acceptable and overpriced, and they had a serious increase of music sales, but yet, they want more. So, lets say they get what they want. I know that I won't pay $3 for a song, or whatever the price they wanna put.

Most of the difference from digital prices to store prices come from the fact that there are no "logistics" involved. No warehouses, no distribution, no transportation, no storage. Is it that hard to notice that?

And it would be the same as in my homeland, where people charge as much as $25 a single CD, and torrent sites there are extremely popular.

I'm not "pro piracy", but when there are no limits, well, then the "alternative way" puts the real threat, and they need to be aware of that. It is not just walking in wonderland asking for more money.

 

[Aldaris]

This is ricockulous! This is the equivalent of buying a coke at a vending machine, and then having the sugar manufacturer come up and ask for money from the vending machine and the end consumer.

Really the Music and Entertainment industry needs to look at how they are doing business if they want to keep doing business.

During the writers strike in 2007, iTunes favorite Dr. Horrible was made, yeah it's cheesy and short, but still good entertainment. It was made to show it can be done without the red-tape, that people can still tell there stories, and convey their thoughts and ideas.

If the song/lyric writers want more money, they need to negotiate that with who they do business with.

*Plus, Don't they realize, that the iTunes Store, isn't why Apple has an excess of 28B in the bank? And that the iTS really is a break even if anything for Apple?

*Oh and Check out Distorted View! Free and Paying entertainment with no 'performance fee's'.

 

[Jimmetry]

This story sounds on the surface to be absurd and petty, but consider the following: When you sell your music on itunes, Apple takes about 30-40% of every dollar of revenue. Apple is charging you, say, 30 cents for a dollar of music for the service of downloading it.

If it can be proved that the feature of having live streaming of 30 second clips contributes to the business, then why shouldn't the artists get paid some fractional amount for that? Apple is using intellectual property that does not belong to them as part of their profit model. I think that is something that is perfectly logical and negotiable. It's a struggle between the power of the person making the song and the person selling the song. In this case Apple has all the power, but this argument is by no means absurd. It's like saying that employees of a company have no right to stand up for their own worth and renegotiate their pay based on their contribution to the company.

Some other thoughts:

I am amazed at the vitriol directed towards songwriters here who want to get paid for other people using their music to make money.

People complain with such scorn and contempt about the greed of artists because they see art as not having monetary value and the artist as selfish and inhuman for wanting to get paid.

But who is the selfish one? Perhaps it is the person who takes what the artist produces and condemns them when they seek compensation.

The music industry is horrible, it screws the artist, that is beyond true. But this is not about that. People tend to rag on the "greed" of artists for trying to make a living. If you look at the VAST majority of people who sell on itunes, they are not getting rich.

As much as people find it reprehensible that artists want their fair shake, if you don't pay them then they stop making music, and our lives are the poorer for it.

Writing, recording, and distributing music costs a lot of time and money. You don't hear songwriters, who are usually the kind of people who don't care about money (versus a giant media conglomorate) bitching about getting rich, you hear them bitching about getting paid for their work.


Artists traditionally are not organized and have no collective bargaining power. They are always getting screwed. If you want to look at the greedy party in this situation I say it is apple. The notion that a company like apple is being "picked on" by songwriters is patently absurd.

********.

Apple takes 10% of song purchases for maintaining the store, providing previews and art, covering the cost of credit card fees and other things related to store accounts. It's a completely reasonable cut.

For iPhone application downloads (not relevant to this discussion, but the only thing remotely related to your statistic), Apple takes 30%. This is easily justified by the fact that releasing the framework to the public is a massive task. They can also justify it through the approval process, but I'll stay neutral on that since there are a lot of questions about just how necessary approval is (I think it's very necessary but they need to specify clearer rules or categorise bad apps so the developer can have it on the store without it becoming a flood of failure).

Edit:
As for your blurb about the artist deserving the extra money.. of course they deserve it, but we all know where the extra profits will actually end up. The music industry has screwed itself by *allowing* these producers to take such an absurdly high cut for so long...

I wonder how effective a system would be where, when you buy the song, you could nominate to make a donation on top of the song price that is guaranteed to go direct to the artist. I think it could work.

 

[Spades]

If it can be proved that the feature of having live streaming of 30 second clips contributes to the business, then why shouldn't the artists get paid some fractional amount for that?

If the clips contribute to the business then aren't the artists getting paid because of the increased sales?

Apple is using intellectual property that does not belong to them as part of their profit model. This is something that is in the contract one signs with itunes, and that is fine. However, it is also something that is negotiable when one considers the value of an artist's intellectual property to iTunes. If artists or the music "industry" believe that the business model should be different, well they have the right to do that. Apple created this business model so naturally it favors them, but in a free market the labor side (in this case songwriters or the music biz) have ever right to negotiate the terms.

Of course they have the right to negotiate. But when those negotiations don't end in their favor, they shouldn't go running to the government to get what they want.

I am amazed at the vitriol directed towards songwriters here who want to get paid for other people using their music to make money.

A promotional clip by itself doesn't make any money for Apple either. If that clip produces a sale, then Apple does get money. And then so does the artist.

 

[notjustjay]

A few thoughts.

I have no problem with writers, composers, and performers making more money. If I like an artist, I buy their work so they make more money. But my understanding is that when I pay $15 for a CD, the artist gets a tiny fraction of that. It's the people in the middle that take the huge cuts, and that's where I have a problem.

I have no problem with artists wanting to be compensated for public performances for their work. But playing a 30-second sample from iTunes in the privacy of my home -- how on EARTH does that constitute a public performance?

I also have no problem with artists wanting to be compensated for synchronization rights for their work. PLEASE, music industry, MAKE THIS PROCESS EASIER. Suppose I have a slide show for a charity fundraiser and I want to put a Coldplay song behind it. I'm not a producer, this isn't for a worldwide production, I just want it for a small audience. How do I go about doing this legally? How much is it going to cost me? I've gone down this road once and it is a huge hassle to contact the appropriate lawyers and costs a lot of money. So, most people just go ahead and do it, technically illegally, and then the artists complain that they're not getting compensated.

Imagine if it was as easy as filling out an online form with the name of the song, and the details of its use, and then paying say $20 for the right to play the song for an audience of 100 people, once, during a public presentation. I'd pay it.

 

[igorleandro]

That's exactly what this news story is about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hum... I understood as "well, if iTunes doesn't pay what you want, distribute your product elsewhere."

So, lets say, I wanna sell your product at 100, but you want 120. Then since you couldn't convince me, you just go to the government and ask it to force me to sell it for 120 so you could have more money? Is that ok?

Hey, look, try to sell on the other store then.

 

[Rapmastac1]

Maybe these major record labels need to stop being so greedy and give more to the complaining artists. The artist only makes a small percentage of their actual sales as the record company takes all the rest.

I think now is the time to call the record label a middle man. As technology advances you see lots of these "middle men" disappear as the need for them isn't apparent anymore. It's the record labels time now... For the past few years you see more and more artists who don't depend on a daddy company to watch over them. They are fully capable of doing their work on their own, in fact a lot of them started their own record company (Mike Koglin - Noys Music is one).

If they do this, they will certainly see an increase in piracy and a decrease in sales. You can only push the consumers so far until they lash back.

 

[celtikmind]

Somebody has to stand up for the artists. Just because an artist chooses that way of life doesn't mean they should settle with the way royalties are being paid out, which is just pitiful right now.

Once, an artist would approach a record label for help with distribution and professional technicians. In return for the help they would have a share of the profits.

Today, the distribution can be made with services along style of iTunes and similar. Technology has made it possible for upcoming artists to make their own recording studio.

Where along the chain of evolution does it say that the record label/company is really needed? Shouldn't they have a lesser profit share today when they, in reality, have a lesser importance to the whole music chain?

Their useless existence is evident in the whole music artist production many of them are incorporating today. There aren't enough artists to distribute often enough that they have to create them through various means. Many of them releasing one album, maybe two, only to be replaced and forgotten by another.

The artists should have a larger share of the profits, yes. But not a larger part of our wallets.

Life would be so much easier without any record labels.

 

[theneweyes]

This is ricockulous! This is the equivalent of buying a coke at a vending machine, and then having the sugar manufacturer come up and ask for money from the vending machine and the end consumer.

Really the Music and Entertainment industry needs to look at how they are doing business if they want to keep doing business.

During the writers strike in 2007, iTunes favorite Dr. Horrible was made, yeah it's cheesy and short, but still good entertainment. It was made to show it can be done without the red-tape, that people can still tell there stories, and convey their thoughts and ideas.

If the song/lyric writers want more money, they need to negotiate that with who they do business with.

*Plus, Don't they realize, that the iTunes Store, isn't why Apple has an excess of 28B in the bank? And that the iTS really is a break even if anything for Apple?

*Oh and Check out Distorted View! Free and Paying entertainment with no 'performance fee's'.

Your argument makes no sense. Dr. Horrible was made despite the writer's strike, and I guess although it's cheesy, nevertheless it's entertaining? The writer's strike wasn't about "red tape". It was about the industry not compensating writers with royalties from online services like TV shows that are shown on iTunes. Apple takes these shows and feeds them to subscribers without paying the proper royalties to the actual writers of the shows. It's about the artists! We're not greedy! We just want to be compensated for the art we create! So we can keep creating art! Less money--less intelligent people that want to make a decent living will go into the entertainment industry. No artist goes into this field expecting to make a killing, but they do hope to make enough to support themselves and their families. Is that too much to ask?

 

[tunecrew]

I had to register just to post this:

Maybe ONE person in the comments actually understands the issue here - this is NOT about labels and artists - it is about writers and publishers, who are a different set of players in the music biz, with a different set of rights and a different set of income streams.

I don't necessarily agree with their initiative here, but please take the time to understand the issues here before ranting and raving about the RIAA, major labels, etc.

 

[whooleytoo]

Agree with those who suggest the record labels are increasingly redundant.

If writers & artists want a bigger cut, they should consider going to someone like CDBaby, and they'd have up to a 60% cut of the gross revenue. Much of what they would lose in publicity from leaving their big label would be gained in their increased percentage of the take. You have a cheap, global marketing tool (i.e. the internet), use it.

If they want the security of a big label, and the exposure that goes with it; fine, but they have to pay for it. They can't have it both ways.

I'd like a job with lots of free time, a sexy latina girlfriend, a Lamborghini.. and a pony. Maybe I should look to have some legislation passed...

 

[Jimmetry]

I had to register just to post this:

Maybe ONE person in the comments actually understands the issue here - this is NOT about labels and artists - it is about writers and publishers, who are a different set of players in the music biz, with a different set of rights and a different set of income streams.

I don't necessarily agree with their initiative here, but please take the time to understand the issues here before ranting and raving about the RIAA, major labels, etc.

Good point.

However that raises a new question.

If the artist isn't getting a performance fee for song previews then why the hell should the writer?

 

[schmidm77]

Do you know what it takes to create something worth copyrighting?

Not relevant at all. I can sink billions of dollars into R&D to create something that is patentable and that will get me 20 years from the date I submit the application. And that's assuming it even gets approved. Copyright for even the most trivial thing is automatic in the United States and lasts 50 to 75 years after the dead of the author, which is absurd.

 

[smartaleck]

if i write a song and it's good enough, i can make a lot of money selling it outright to a label or to another artist. writers don't do this, though. They sell a license and allow whomever to record/release the song, then they sit back and wait for the royalties.

it doesn't have to be that way, and in a lot of non-US places, it isn't.

This is pure ignorance.

 

[mickhyperion]

It's obvious that about 99% of you commenting here don't have a clue what you're talking about. You don't even understand the basic argument.

 

[theneweyes]

Not relevant at all. I can sink billions of dollars into R&D to create something that is patentable and that will get me 20 years from the date I submit the application. And that's assuming it even gets approved. Copyright for even the most trivial thing is automatic in the United States and lasts 50 to 75 years after the dead of the author, which is absurd.

You missed the point. They were saying that it's not so easy to just create a song, throw it on iTunes and expect the royalties to support all the time and effort it took to create that song, even though it might only take up 3 minutes of your life.

 

[whooleytoo]

I had to register just to post this:

Maybe ONE person in the comments actually understands the issue here - this is NOT about labels and artists - it is about writers and publishers, who are a different set of players in the music biz, with a different set of rights and a different set of income streams.

I don't necessarily agree with their initiative here, but please take the time to understand the issues here before ranting and raving about the RIAA, major labels, etc.

I think people do understand the problem; but it's just not OUR problem.

If the writers are being screwed, they need to negotiate a better deal. If they've signed contracts with labels or artists for too low a share, it's their own problem.

If they want money for the 30 second previews; fine, let them negotiate with Apple & others, and take the music down if they don't get it. If they've already signed away the negotiating rights for their music, it's their own problem.

 

[iksretep]

make sure you keep your windows up...

I usually listen to music in my car with the windows down. I wonder if I should be worried about their ridiculous public broadcast appeal... after all if you're sitting in traffic next to me I am giving you free music (perhaps I should even call this sharing) performance way longer than a 30 second snippet.

 

[smartaleck]

Those greedy damn artists!

I can't wait till we can eliminate the artist from the creative process entirely. What a better world that would be.

 

[Full of Win]

Reminds me of this South Park episode

Detective: This is the home of Lars Ulrich, the drummer for Metallica. [they approach a bush] Look. There's Lars now, sitting by his pool. [he's seen sitting on the edge of a chaise longue, his face in his hands, softly sobbing]
Kyle: What's the matter with him?
Detective: This month he was hoping to have a gold-plated shark tank bar installed right next to the pool, but thanks to people downloading his music for free, he must now wait a few months before he can afford it. [a close-up of Lars sobbing] Come. There's more. [leads them away. Next seen is a small airport at night] Here's Britney Spears' private jet. Notice anything? [a shot of Britney boarding a plane, then stopping to look at it before entering] Britney used to have a Gulfstream IV. Now she's had to sell it and get a Gulfstream III because people like you chose to download her music for free. [Britney gives a heavy sigh and goes inside.] The Gulfstream III doesn't even have a remote control for its surround-sound DVD system. Still think downloading music for free is no big deal?
Kyle: We... didn't realize what we were doing, eh...
Detective: That is the folly of man. Now look in this window. [they are at another mansion, and they look inside a picture window] Here you see the loving family of Master P. [He's shown tossing a basketball to his wife while his kid tries to catch it] Next week is his son's birthday and, all he's ever wanted was an island in French Polynesia. [his mom lowers the ball and gives it to the boy, who smiles, picks it up and drops it. It rolls away and he goes after it]
Kyle: So, he's gonna get it, right?
Detective: I see an island without an owner. If things keep going the way they are, the child will not get his tropical paradise.
Stan: [apologetically] We're sorry! We'll, we'll never download music for free again!
Detective: [somberly, dramatically] Man must learn to think of these horrible outcomes before he acts selfishly or else... I fear... recording artists will be forever doomed to a life of only semi-luxury.

 

[lyzardking]

Apple takes these shows and feeds them to subscribers without paying the proper royalties to the actual writers of the shows.

It wasn't Apple that didn't pay the royalties, it was the "industry" that was trying to pull a "fast one" because the existing contracts (at the time) were written without a digital content/distribution clause.

 

[RazHyena]

Let them have their way, then. Allow Congress to pass these laws and by all means REMOVE those 30 second samples from iTunes. And don't forget to keep prosecuting 12 year old girls who download those Hannah Montana albums.

That way, when music sales nosedive and record stores go bankrupt, we might have a chance of seeing some civility from the music industry. Cutting their revenue stream is the only way they are going to change these behaviors.