Music Industry Wants Royalties From iTunes 30 Second Samples
Dear music industry: Go f–k yourself.
Music royalty groups ASCAP and BMI are harassing online music stores such as iTunes to pay performance fees not only for the songs that they sell, but for the short clips that they use as previews. You know, the things that entice people to pay for music. They want to be paid for advertisements of their product.
Just how backwards is this industry? How many years can they continue to just not get it in such an extreme way? You would have thought that maybe it would have taken a few years for them to figure out the internet, but we’re way beyond that. This entire industry seems to be run by people who don’t just not understand the internet, but are aggressive about not understanding the internet. They have their old way of doing business and the old way the world works, and they’ll be damned if any new fangled thing like a complete upheaval in the way people acquire and listen to music is going to change that.
It’d almost be funny if the people who were really being harmed by these jackasses weren’t the artists. Bands aren’t the ones pushing for something that will only end with their best form of advertising being pulled from the iTunes Music Store (because make no mistake, that’s what will happen before Apple pays for f–king song clips). It’s these royalties idiots, the same people who almost killed off Pandora.
So here’s the bottom line, guys: You’re doing it wrong. And you’ve been doing it wrong for a while. You need to figure out a new way of doing business, and that doesn’t mean just shifting fees around and charging where you clearly shouldn’t be charging. Earn your paychecks, because unlike the bands you purport to be representing, you’re still getting them. [CNET via Electronista]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
I had an issue with BMI years ago when I was playing in a band at the time. We were a group that played our own music but we threw in 2 or 3 cover songs of music that inspired us. We would have have a little story about those songs, and how the albums they were on influenced us and that they should be a part of everyone’s collection. I had numerous people tell me they bought those CDs because of us and were better off for doing so.
One day I received a letter from BMI with a strongly worded request to cease playing certain cover songs because we were being paid by the club and profiting from this music. It turns out a BMI exec just happened to be in the club one night when we were playing. I was completely blown away by this letter and just could not believe it, I thought it was a joke. I contacted BMI and they basically said that they can prosecute me further if we continue without paying royalties.
Nothing ever happened with it and we never stopped playing those songs but I just couldn’t believe the greed that they wanted to take from us money that barely paid for our gas money to get to the club.
I have worked in the music business off and on in several facets, including working at record companies and I will say that it is one of the most dirty, shady businesses there is, period.
If the club you were performing at is registered with APRA (or similar, no idea where you were performing; other countries have different names) there is nothing infringing about performing covers. You do not need permission to perform covers, only that the Artist (and the leaches) get their cut of royalties. The royalties would be covered by APRA in the club where you performed.*
If the club does NOT have APRA, then BMI should† be more worried about that.
*But some people are pushing for similar royalty payments to be pushed up i.e. AU$18-30,000 per year for cafés/restaurants.
†But as we know, the music industry isn’t the smartest fish in the ocean, so they might not know how to put 1 and 1 together to get 2.
Music industry EPIC FAIL!!!
So…we’re going back to piracy to sample before we buy again? Geez.
I’m pretty certain that Music Stores playing 30 seconds or less of a piece of music falls under ‘Fair Use’ and so they aren’t obligated to pay any royalties. I guess if the recording companies don’t succeed at bullying music stores they’ll do it in the political arena instead.
You’d think so, but generally fair use doesn’t cover music that much (text MUCH more so). Sampling 5 seconds of a very recognizable melody is still technically copyright infringement (unless it is done for parody or critique).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the biggest threat to the music industry IS the music industry.