RIAA Wants Artist Royalties Lowered

laughingcoyote writes "The RIAA has asked the panel of federal government Copyright Royalty Judges to lower royalties paid to publishers and songwriters. They're specifically after digital recordings, and uses like cell phone ringtones. They say that the rates (which were placed in 1981) don't apply the same way to new technologies." From the article: "According to The Hollywood Reporter, the RIAA maintains that in the modern period when piracy began devastating the record industry profits to publishers from sales of ringtones and other 'innovative services' grew dramatically. Record industry executives believe this to be cause to advocate reducing the royalties paid to the artists who wrote the original music."

Comments

Re:RIAA does *not* represent artists

[Anonymous Coward]

The Recording Industry Association of America represents the recording industry, like record labels and distributors, not artists.

It's easy to get confused simply because they lie about it so much. "Won't somebody think of the starving artists!" is their main battle cry, not "Won't somebody think of the fat record company executives". However, it's also easy to avoid confusion by simply reminding yourself that they are lying weasels with the ethical standards of a rat. Never take anything they say at face value and you won't get misled (as often).

Eh...?

[Anonymous Coward]

the RIAA maintains that in the modern period when piracy began devastating the record industry profits to publishers from sales of ringtones and other 'innovative services' grew dramatically.

Is it just me or does this sentence make no fucking sense?

This could be a good thing

[Heir Of The Mess]

If the RIAA start driving away the artists then it makes the RIAA even less of a player. Just think one day the artists and the fans might connect directly on the internet with no middle man in between to screw the artists and sue the fans.

Their greed will be their undoing. I wonder why it hasn't been their undoing in the past though?

Re:This could be a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I have often wondered why the recording industry, faced with increasing competition from other distribution technologies, has not concluded that "recording" no longer is a viable business today.
They should go out of business or enter into new ventures, instead of bitching all the time.

I bet the association of Watt steam-enging manufacturers also experiences difficult times these days. But they don't try to blame the Otto internal combustion engine people all the time.

Re:This could be a good thing

[king-manic]

It all depends on whose numbers you take. The margins for a label for the artist will appear low because the label claims a lot of expenses that are bullshit. It will pay itself $20,000 for the recording and mark that down as an expense. Pay itself 150,00 for promotion ditto with the fucked up accounting then it will pay the artists ect.. and int he end your left with 2-8 % but it managed to be the lions share of the expenses so in reality it made a lot more money but defered it to another portion of the label. Movies do the same stupid shit with fucked up accounting.

Re:This could be a good thing

[shark72]

"It all depends on whose numbers you take. The margins for a label for the artist will appear low because the label claims a lot of expenses that are bullshit. It will pay itself $20,000 for the recording and mark that down as an expense. Pay itself 150,00 for promotion ditto with the fucked up accounting then it will pay the artists ect.. and int he end your left with 2-8 % but it managed to be the lions share of the expenses so in reality it made a lot more money but defered it to another portion of the label. Movies do the same stupid shit with fucked up accounting."

Good points (record labels are masters of funny accounting to avoid paying their artists) but keep in mind that the 2% net margin number I mentioned is what they reported to the street. There's absolutely no benefit to under-reporting your profitability when you're a publicly traded company. Your company's valuation is fundamental to your business.

I don't think you were going this far, but if part of accepting the "record companies make insane profits" theory requires belief that they under-report to their shareholders, then it's time for a bit of Occam's Razor or, as John Galt put it, time to check your assumptions.

By the way, I mentioned that Warner Records posted a 2% net margin last year. By comparison:

• Apple computer: reported 10% net margin last year
• Logitech: also 10% net margin
• Novell: 1% net margin

So, I guess one way to spin it is that Warner is hugely profitable because their net profit margin percentage last year was twice that of Novell. But Logitech and Apple left both in the dust.

Re:one would hope...

[joshetc]

I would think it would be the exact opposite. In the last 25 years the cost of audio production equipment, cd presses (well equivelant to mainstream of yester-year) and printing presses (for inserts) have advanced dramatically and gone wait down in price. I think its about time artists begin recording their own music or grouping together for recordings then paying the labels a small cut for mass reproduction of their music...

For fucks sake, no.

[jb.hl.com]

Just, no. Greedy fuckers. If anything the royalty rates need raising to apply to new technologies, considering how much revenue the industry and artists are losing from people downloading instead of buying.

Absolutely fucking disgusting.

Re:Why artists?

[Fred_A]

Not all musicians are artists.

"Artist" is "industryspeak" to designate a content creator. It's different than the popular meaning of the word. Whether the output has any artistic value or not is irrelevant. It's faster than saying for example "the guy who moves his lips on the video while the ugly fattie we can't show sings on the sound track".

Re:the record labels can also drop the RIAA

[jfengel]

As a guy who works with one of those long-tail bands, I can tell you that it's a lot more fun to be in the short head. People click on the face on the front page about a zillion times more often than they type your name in a search.

If the only way to get your face there is to sell your soul to the RIAA, then I'll stick with the one-zillionth fraction. But there are times I'm not so sure.

"Music is art"

[UnixSphere]

Sure it is, the way they pump out artists with modifications to their vocals and all the industry music magic they use. That's not art, that's a product being produced just the same way a Ford Mustang is produced on an assembly line.

Re:RIAA does *not* represent artists

[MurphyZero]

I need mod points because you hit it right on the nail. If you deal with illegal activities, you expect the chance to be burned. But when you deal with supposedly legal activities, you expect to get value in return and not be burned. We have federal organizations to deal with Taco Bell, but if there is no recourse to shady dealings from the legal source, then the RIAA should expect nothing less than severe backlash, whether it be pirated CDs, internet sharing, or what I suspect most people have done: stop buying new albums. I haven't done any downloading in years, mainly because I got the songs I wanted and there's nothing good coming out via the labels.