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Topic: The Royalty Scam, Billy Bragg |
chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 22 Mar 2008 9:34 am |
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The Royalty Scam
By BILLY BRAGG
Published: March 22, 2008
Dorset, England
LAST week at South by Southwest, the rock music conference held every year in Austin, Tex., the talk in hotel lobbies, coffeeshops and the convention center was dominated by one issue: how do musicians make a living in the age of the Internet? It’s a problem our industry has struggled with in the wake of the rising popularity of sharing mp3 music files.
Our discussions were brought into sharp relief when news reached Austin of the sale of Bebo.com to AOL for a staggering $850 million. Bebo is a social-networking site whose membership has risen to 40 million in just two years. In Britain, it ranks with MySpace and Facebook in popularity, although its users tend to come from a younger age group.
Estimates suggested that the founder, Michael Birch (along with his wife and co-founder, Xochi), walked away with $600 million for his 70 percent stake in the company.
I heard the news with a particular piquancy, as Mr. Birch has cited me as an influence in Bebo’s attitude toward artists. He got in touch two years ago after I took MySpace to task over its proprietary rights clause. I was concerned that the site was harvesting residual rights from original songs posted there by unsigned musicians. As a result of my complaints, MySpace changed its terms and conditions to state clearly that all rights to material appearing on the site remain with the originator.
A few weeks later, Mr. Birch came to see me at my home. He was hoping to expand his business by hosting music and wanted my advice on how to construct an artist-centered environment where musicians could post original songs without fear of losing control over their work. Following our talks, Mr. Birch told the press that he wanted Bebo to be a site that worked for artists and held their interests first and foremost.
In our discussions, we largely ignored the elephant in the room: the issue of whether he ought to consider paying some kind of royalties to the artists. After all, wasn’t he using their music to draw members — and advertising — to his business? Social-networking sites like Bebo argue that they have no money to distribute — their value is their membership. Well, last week Michael Birch realized the value of his membership. I’m sure he’ll be rewarding those technicians and accountants who helped him achieve this success. Perhaps he should also consider the contribution of his artists.
The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise. Their investment is the content provided for free while the site has no liquid assets. Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend.
What’s at stake here is more than just the morality of the market. The huge social networking sites that seek to use music as free content are as much to blame for the malaise currently affecting the industry as the music lover who downloads songs for free. Both the corporations and the kids, it seems, want the use of our music without having to pay for it.
The claim that sites such as MySpace and Bebo are doing us a favor by promoting our work is disingenuous. Radio stations also promote our work, but they pay us a royalty that recognizes our contribution to their business. Why should that not apply to the Internet, too?
Technology is advancing far too quickly for the old safeguards of intellectual property rights to keep up, and while we wait for the technical fixes to emerge, those of us who want to explore the opportunities the Internet offers need to establish a set of ground rules that give us the power to decide how our music is exploited and by whom.
We need to do this not for the established artists who already have lawyers, managers and careers, but for the fledgling songwriters and musicians posting original material onto the Web tonight. The first legal agreement that they enter into as artists will occur when they click to accept the terms and conditions of the site that will host their music. Worryingly, no one is looking out for them.
If young musicians are to have a chance of enjoying a fruitful career, then we need to establish the principle of artists’ rights throughout the Internet — and we need to do it now. |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 22 Mar 2008 10:56 am
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Thanks, Chas. Legal issues tend to be over my head. But with articles like this I can at least get a grasp of the basic issues. Thanks again.
_________________
Amor vincit omnia |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 22 Mar 2008 12:20 pm
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Edward, there have been similar posts and discussions here, on the Forum, before, but I see it as an ongoing issue which also affects me, in a small way.
There also have been arguments that once the "job" has been finished, why should the musician/composer expect to get, or be entitled to get royalties, when it is played? I think that that is an argument against profit sharing, which I shouldn't have to go into, especially if you are a member of the working class.
"Radio is not about selling music, it's about selling advertising." -- Buck Owens
"People don't listen to the radio to hear the commercials." -- Lyle Lovett |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 22 Mar 2008 3:26 pm
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I've read alot of those discussions. I've understood parts of most of them. I thought this put what it had to say in BRIEF and understandable language. If I have to reread something 4 or 5 times to get it, I often just don't.
_________________
Amor vincit omnia |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 26 Mar 2008 1:54 pm
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One of the latest quotes I've read is..."The real danger isn't piracy, it's obscurity." Everyone wants (and feels they deserve) fame and fortune. Ever watched American Idol early in the season?
So many (dumb?) people post their stuff somewhere without even thinking. Then, when the hoster makes millions, they feel they're entitled to something. Sorry - it don't work that way. If you're expecting "morals" from those involved in the music business, you're Pretty much out of luck. These days, it's every man for himself, more or less. If you don't have a contract of some sort, you simply don't have a legal leg to stand on.
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| A few weeks later, Mr. Birch came to see me at my home. He was hoping to expand his business by hosting music and wanted my advice on how to construct an artist-centered environment where musicians could post original songs without fear of losing control over their work. |
I certainly hope you had some sort of agreement and scored a large consulting fee. 
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| The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise. Their investment is the content provided for free while the site has no liquid assets. Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend. |
"Investors in a start-up enterprise"? Well, that's a stretch. (Their stuff had little or no value, or they wouldn't have given it away in the first place, would they?)
They probably won't ever get a "dividend", either. But hopefully...they've learned a valuable lesson. |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2008 9:44 am
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| "The real danger isn't piracy, it's obscurity." Everyone wants (and feels they deserve) fame and fortune.......... Their stuff had little or no value, or they wouldn't have given it away in the first place, would they? |
Good point. I can't help but think that when I wasn't paying attention, everything changed. I prefer to listen to the singers from the '30's, '40's and '50's when it was about "delivering" the song. Now the song is a way of showcasing the singer and in that regard, it's a disposable commodity and the focus is on the star. With stardom comes fame and fortune and with fame and fortune, apparently, you can have anything you want or at least, that's the perception and the motivation.
Back to obscurity. How do you get noticed, today? In 1987 there were something like 5000 record releases, for the year. Now there are probably that many, every other day. When the "market" is so saturated with "products", of every kind, how do you stand out without a big budget for, publicity (at one time, a band I work with had a low end publicist at $4000/mo and you've never heard of us), airplay (we were told that we needed at least $160K to cover the slotting fees), touring, nobody comes to hear you, if they've never heard of you, hmmmm, maybe we need better publicity, or how many free gigs can you afford to play, forget pay to play.
The "labels" have a monopoly on the traditional distribution channels. I recently had a welding job at a company where the co-ordinator had a friend who was an executive at some label. He, not knowing that I was also a musician, told a story of how his friend was bragging to him that he had just signed a very promising band and had gotten them to sign a contract where they wouldn't get anything for at least 3 years.
How do you put a value on the music that you've done and what do you want to do with it? You're sitting at the table with a cd of your most recent composition/song/album, it took days/weeks/months to write/record/mix/master do the art work (cd), not counting the years you've spent learning how to play your instrument, learning how to write music and such. Maybe you would like to supplement your income with music or perhaps make a living doing music, something that you think has more value and meaning than whatever you're doing now or maybe you would just like to get some acknowledgement for your efforts. I don't know anybody that doesn't enjoy an applause or some validation. So how do you get it "out there" and get noticed?
You could give it to a label, assuming they want it. They'll want the mechanical rights and at least half of the publishing, in return for loaning you the money needed for promotion. Or maybe you take a chance on putting it up on the internet, where there could be a large audience and in spite of the fact that there is an endless amount of other stuff competing for their attention, maybe you get noticed and something happens. |
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Mat Rhodes
From:
Lexington, KY, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2008 11:02 am
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This is why you'll probably see more and more musicians/composers/songwriters becoming glorified jingle writers. It seems that most new acts, whose names I never remember, are heard via commercials.
The recording and publishing industries could likely become segmented and slowly "acquired" by larger corporations like Johnson & Johnson, Frito Lay, Anheuser Busch, etc. as part of their advertising/sales division.
For the rest of us who aren't so unfortunate to have "sold our souls", we'll still have to depend on live gigs and merchandise sales for any income. Perhaps the positive in that scenario is that there will be incorporation of other visual media into the shows (less shoegazing) and not so much the selling or "giving away" of recorded music. The emphasis is on the show itself. You want music? You have to come to my show to hear it.
In a way, the implosion we're witnessing is kind of liberating. Sort of like the end of the movie "Fight Club". |
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Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 30 Mar 2008 7:36 pm
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What's new? There were always millions of good-enough singers, and only a few stars.
and on a related note:
http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=626176
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Lyor Cohen Receives Promotion, Raise, New Contract
March 20, 2008
Lyor Cohen
In a recent filing with the SEC, Warner Music Group revealed that it has re-signed Lyor Cohen for five more years, and given him a promotion to Chairman/CEO of North America for WMG. Cohen also received a bump in his pay, with a base salary doubling from $1.5 million to $3 million, with a maximum bonus of $5 million and a minimum of $1.5 million. Cohen would also now receive $8.5 million if he was terminated.
Cohen's new contract also gives him 1,500,000 stock options and 1,750,000 performance-based restricted shares of WMG common stock. |
I'm not sure I would want those stock options. |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 31 Mar 2008 12:51 pm
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Lyor Cohen sounds like a pretty interesting guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyor_Cohen
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In 2001, Cohen was given the nickname Lansky (after the notorious Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky) by Irv Gotti in recognition for his partnership and place on the board of directors when the two went into business together forming Murder Inc. Records (named after the original Murder Inc.).[3][4] Cohen's Island Def Jam label provided Gotti $2,000,000 in 'seed' money to start operations and the label with office space in his Island Def Jam Manhattan headquarters.[3] This later came under the scrutiny of federal authorities when Murder Inc. Records at Island Def Jam was raided by a joint task force of the NYPD and the FBI as part of a federal probe of label founder Irv Gotti's ties to drug lord Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, alleged drug trafficking, money laundering, and gang activities.[5] Of particular interest to authorities was an Island Def Jam payment of $500,000 to a company fronted by McGriff called Picture Perfect Entertainment, ostensibly for the soundtrack (that was never delivered) to McGriff's film adaptation of Donald Goines "Crime Partners" which he had optioned.[6]
Cohen was eventually absolved of any involvement in the scandal, even after he claimed under oath that he couldn’t identify his position with Murder Inc. Records. When asked if he sat with Gotti on the executive board of Murder Inc., Cohen replied “I’m not sure.”[3] Gotti, also since absolved of allegations,[7] declined Cohen's offer to join him at Warner Music Group.[8] |
I can't help but think that my interest and love of music is different from his.
Back, some time ago, I went to the House of Blues, not my favorite venue, to see Emmy Lou Harris, who I worship. I was looking around for the most ideal place to listen and settled behind a roped off area for the industry people, assuming that since they were the "music people" they would have the best sight lines and sound.
After the openers, and just before Emmy Lou came on, they all filed in and sat at their tables. Everybody else, on the lower level, has to stand, which I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to stand all day, at my job.
Emmy Lou was radiant and when she started singing, my shin splints evaporated. However, the music industry people would not stop talking about all of the things they had bought and all of the things they intended to buy. I had to find another location. It's a good thing I don't own a machine gun. |
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Herb Steiner
From:
Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064
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Posted 2 Apr 2008 7:09 am Where's Dr. Gonzo when you need him?
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Time for the Hunter Thompson quote...
_________________
My rig: Infinity and Telonics.
Son, we live in a world with walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with steel guitars. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? |
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Mike Winter
From:
Portland, OR
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Posted 2 Apr 2008 9:14 am
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Here you go, Herb...
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| The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side. |
...although I've always thought this one was a hoot...
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| I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. |
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