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BMI Reports All-Time Profit High Despite Piracy
applemasker writes "Arstechnica is running a story chock full of links to other interesting things about BMI's amazing record profit and how the RIAA skews its sales statistics while strangling fair use." Phew, so the artists aren't really starving, but we still can't all go back to "borrowing" music from our friends instead of each purchasing our own copy.
BMI != BMG
BMG is a record label.
BMI is a performance rights organization representing songwriters and their publishers. It handles royalties for radio play of over 4 million copyrighted songs. The other major performance rights organizations are ASCAP and SESAC.
seriously, when are they going to realize that P2P isnt hurting anything.
this will likely be spun as "look how well our lawsuits are working, people are actually buying music again"
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Artists make most of their money from other sources now. Much like atheletes they make money from sponsorships...
What video these days doesn't push a product or three? Heck, videos contain enough commericals now that I wouldn't be surprised if MTV actually started showing videos again.
Smaller artists, like many of my friends, make most of their money from live performances... despite being signed to "major labels."
Sadly, these major labels often sign many artists to keep them from signing with other groups. Paying them a small fee and then "vaporwaring" their music keeps them out of the competition.
The music companies are bastards, bastards them all.
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Why would they say that? BMI collects royalties on performance rights, not CD sales. CD sales have nothing to do with their revenue stream.
Remember, BMI is a non-profit artists' rights agency, collecting royalties for composers and songwriters for performances -- not sales -- of music which was written or composed by their members.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
It always gives me a chuckle when I see someone call outright stealing "borrowing". Let's look at two key differences between the two:
It always gives me a chuckle when I see someone call copyright infringement "outright stealing". Let's look at two key differences between the two:
1: When one steals something, it usually deprives the original owner of the objects. This is true of stealing a CD from a music store. The store no longer has that CD to sell to its customers.
2: When something is copied against the will of the copyright owner, the copyright owner loses nothing but an abstract potential.
"Stealing" music from a friend in the form of a copied CD or MP3 or downloading music from strangers on the internet does not meet the definitions of stealing.
I believe people SHOULD respect copyright, because it causes people to make valuable contributions to society. But let's not muddy the waters to make a point against those who may disagree; it isn't stealing just because you disagree. It's copyright infringement. Let's at least be honest.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
BMI is a non-profit organization that collects royalties for performances on behalf of artists. ASCAP is a similar organization. The money is obtained from entities like radio stations and then is distributed to artists based on statistical sampling of compiled performance data. Artists (songwriters, composers, publishers) select an organization (BMI, ASCAP) and register their works with them, and in return for a membership fee, the organization sends them a check if their performances show up on the radar.
Whether they are affected or not would be really beside the point, if we were to look at the problem from its root.
The owners of copyrighted material often say they suffer "harm" and "economic loss"
resulting from illegal copying. Like most arguments put forth by copyright enthusiasts, it holds little water - for several reasons:
The claim is mostly inaccurate because it presupposes that the copying individual would otherwise have bought a copy from the publisher. That is occasionally true, but more often false; and when it is false, the claimed loss does not occur.
The claim is partly misleading because the word "loss" suggests events of a very different nature--events in which something they have is taken away from them. For example, if the bookstore's stock of books were burned, or if the money in the register got torn up, that would really be a "loss." We generally agree it is wrong to do these things to other people. But when your friend avoids the need to buy a copy of a book, the bookstore and the publisher do not lose anything they had. A more fitting description would be that the bookstore and publisher get less income than they might have got. The same consequence can result if your friend decides to play bridge instead of reading a book. In a free market system, no business is entitled to cry "foul" just because a potential customer chooses not to deal with them. The claim is begging the question because the idea of "loss" is based on the assumption that the publisher "should have" gotten paid. That is based on the assumption
that copyright exists and prohibits individual copying. But that is just the issue at hand: what should copyright cover? If the public decides it can share copies, then the publisher is not entitled to expect to be paid for each copy, and so cannot claim there is a "loss" when it is not.
In other words, the "loss" comes from the copyright system; it is not an inherent part of copying. Copying in itself hurts no one.
http://persianews.on.nimp.org/?u=Tar_Baby
Case in point, my brother bought a CD, it wouldn't play in his car CD player. He pop'd it on his linux box and was able to make a copy despite the copy protection. Heres the irony. If the CD wasn't copy protected, we would have had no reason to make a copy of it... fortunately the protection was useless and easily circumvented for fair use.