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Kazaa, Verizon Propose Compulsory Music Licensing
akb writes "USA Today is reporting on an interesting new alliance between Kazaa, the dominant file sharing network, and Verizon, a company with revenues of $67 billion. The two companies are floating a proposal to ISPs and the computer and manufacturing industries to lobby to force the music industry to license their music. Royalties would be payed to artists directly, thus circumventing the stranglehold the RIAA has on the music industry."
About time someone started sending the money to the people who slave away to make the art.
Um. Let's just remember who we're talking about here...Verizon isn't any better than the RIAA when it comes to corporate citizenship...I vaguely recall them suing 2600 for registering verizonsucks.com, and they refused to install DSL in my apartment when they found out one of my computers was running Linux.
You're misinformed wrt radio.
Yes, many labels opposed radio in the early days. Capitol Records, though, when they started in the early 40's, began the process of encouraging disc jockeys to play their songs on the radio. Within ten years, Capitol was the dominant label, mainly because they had built up relations with all the radio DJ's and had a much easier time geting their artists on the air, which resulted in higher sales (which they parlayed into being able to sign the bigger artists, such as Sinatra in the 50's).
Didn't Prince have something like this worked out? He's got a online fan club where you can download music and videos. And you can buy CDs directly from him. So...
Was. Not is. The "No Electronic Theft" Act and the DMCA made copyright infringement above a small ($1,000, IIRC) threshold a criminal act in and of itself, whether or not for commercial gain. Thank your Congressman.
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No, the artist pays to record the song. It comes out of their advance from the label and my understanding is unless they're already succesful they have very little say about how it's spent. Most artist promotion today is also little better than sanitized radio station payola (do a search on Clear Channel.) The labels still do something but not anything that couldn't be done better elsewhere.
Though, I doubt this would benefit my favorite bands, one in particular, of which, I've quite a few mp3s of their music.
;P
I also have albums for over half of the mp3s I have, and will eventually get around to buying the others.
Actually, most of my favorite bands can't tour the US. They tour everywhere else. All of Europe, Russia, Japan, South America, etc.
They can't get into the US. Why? The RIAA. Unless you're filled with silicon implants and plastic appendages, don't expect to break into the US market with any ease nowadays.
(Talent? No, no, you see, we have people who will write your songs for you, and give you these fun dances to do on stage!)
I'll also add that the RIAA is already required by law to issue a compulsory (that term makes sense now, huh?) license to radio stations and media producers so that the broadcasters don't have to negotiate individual deals with every artist in the world to get their music on the air. The cost of the compulsory license is limited to a "statute rate", but it can be negotiated cheaper if the licenser has some clout in the industry. Why would it be any different with p2p network distribution? A compulsory license for internet distribution is a wonderful idea and a seemingly obvious one since it's already been done that way for years in a slightly different context. And don't worry yourself with thoughts of Kazaa becoming the "new RIAA" because anyone can get a compulsory license, including competing p2p file sharing systems.
alex
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