Slashdot Mirror
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."
One would hope that all those artists who've been letting themselves get used by the RIAA in their anti-piracy campaign get a good look at this.
...when the RIAA claims to do anything in the future for the sake of artists. They are not working for the artists as we all know, but this is a compelling argument detached from the copyright infringement case.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
But with the same argumentation, wouldn't one then also come to the conclusion that CD prices are massively inflated, as are prices for the DRM-laden digital variants?
Then I read the referenced article.
I owe the editors an apology for my mistaken assumption.
From TFA:
In other words, the RIAA has actually admitted what most Slashdotters have know all along - their crusade is concerned strictly with the "revenues for music publishers", and if enhancing said revenues means screwing the artists, then so be it.
Another point: "...so that record companies can continue to create the sound recordings...". Since when did record companies start creating anything? They take the creations of the artists, slap their name on them, and bleed off the majority of the profits for themselves.
I thought that the RIAA couldn't possibly sink any lower - looks like I was wrong.
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
It never stood for "Artists" in the first place... It for "association"... as in "Record Industry Association of America"
Follow the link and be amazed... the Artists DO NOT feature in the RIAA's thoughts at all, they're only concern is for the publishing rights holders as in the publishers, not the artists.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
When music creation becomes unprofitable, only those who seek to do it out of love will persist.
I really think that we'll see an improvement in the quality of music as a result of this.
Less look fast, more go fast.
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?
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?
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
The major labels had a legitimate niche back when it took a massive distibution network to press an artists records and deliver them to record stores across the world. Today, distribution is a non-issue. It used to take massive ammounts of money to produce a good recording. Today, all the equipment that is required can be bought for less than a modest car. In fact, many major label recordings made today are of substantially lower quality than those of independants. It's not just the equipment, but the people using it. If upper-management orders the knob-jockeys to "make it louder" that's what they do, even if it means mixing tracks so hot that they clip continually. The labels remain the masters of big-budget promotion, but some bands have managed to be successful as independants with a tiny fraction of the promotion budget that a major label band gets. How do they do it? Make good music.
In all honesty, the labels aren't good for consumers. They stifle creativity and promote the stagnation of musical forms by promoting "safe" music over the innovative. This is why a top-40 music station sounds so homogenous whether it's playing pop-country, pop-rock, or pop-rap. Instead of promoting original artists, they hire 40 year old men to write songs about a teenage girl's life, hire a model who can't sing to sing those songs, and then digitally correct the tone-deaf waif's caterwallings in much the same way they air-brush away her zits and about 40 pounds. Then they promote this manufactured crap so heavily that it squeezes good music into the musical margins of life.
The labels aren't good for artists. Only a tiny percentage of artists signed to major labels ever make a profit. Most wind up in debt to the labels with no control over the rights to their own creations. Is the purpose of a record label to make money for itself or is it to make money for the artists? In the past RIAA has argued that artists provide a service, much like recording engineers or the squeegee monkeys that keep the windows of the exec's corner offices clean. They pay their lawyers better than 99.999% of their artists. Those lawyers enforce a copyright system designed to pump money into those corner offices at any cost. One of the costs happens to be the freedom of artists. Take the amen break for example. A whole musical genre grew up around a single sample made 40 years ago because the copyright on it was never enforced. What legally aborted genres might exist today were it not for the labels' lawyers?
Personally, I think RIAA and the major labels know all this. They know they have no legitimate role to play in distribution. They know they manufacture and promote crap because promoting original music carries risk. They screw the artists both financially and creatively. On some level, although they'd never admit it, they even realize that the labels are, at the most fundamental level, only there to get the music from the artist to the consumer and the money from the consumer to the artist. They're middlemen and they know it.
How do you improve any business transaction for both the consumer and the supplier? Cut out the middlemen.
Comparing the entirety of the music industry to the entirety of DeviantArt is fucking insane, as most people on DeviantArt do not make at their vocation, let alone their business. You are comparing a 15-year-old kid's drawing of a Yu-Gi-Oh character to the entire catalog of the Beatles.
By lumping 'musicians' as their own group, away from 'artists,' it's like saying that music somehow has a baseline for appreciation that is lower than that of, say, Rodin. Yet the Rodin Museum has to advertise like crazy to get people in the door, and Green Day sells out in seconds.
Does this mean that Green Day is better than Rodin? No. Does this mean that your analogy is nearly indescribably obtuse? Yes.
Music is art. Some music is brilliant. Other music is not. Some paintings are brilliant. Other paintings are not. Do the math -- Music is art.
I personally know of 3 music artists that have died due to starvation, just in the last 2 weeks. One was a good friend involved on the verge of signing a big record deal with Sony music, but someone leaked the band's latest album on the net before the deal could be signed.. Once Sony realized pirates were using the internat to mass-copy the album, the lawyers walked away and my friend was left homeless and broke.. it was horrible watching his body decompose before my very eyes, I hope you never have to go through the same experience
They are not working for the artists as we all know, but this is a compelling argument detached from the copyright infringement case.
Just to add to this, here are articles by different artists about being ripped off:
Steve Albini
Courtney Love
Steve Vai
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
The article headline is wrong. Artist royalties are paid by record labels to recording artists for use of their recordings.
The article is referring to MECHANICAL ROYALTIES which are paid to SONGWRITERS for use of their songs. While the songwriter and artist are often the same, this is not always the case
EXAMPLE: Joe Schmoe writes a song that is recorded by Britney Spears for her new album. Britney Spears gets paid artist royalties by the record label. Joe Schmoe get paid mechanical royalties by the label.
The article is talking about reducing Joe Schmoe's royalties
> if the RIAA is not going to pay the old kinds of royalties, there is no reason
> the record labels can not walk away. they could form a new organization or
> figure out some other method of making their money. the RIAA and the labels
> have a symbiotic relationship though.
You aren't making any sense. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) pays no royalties. It is the record industry trade group. The labels are the members and it does exactly what they tell it to.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.
This is just the RIAA attempting to rein in yet more control of the artists under their power. The movie studios in the 20's and 30's did the same thing to thier artists before the the actors finally stood up to the studios and formed the precursor to SAG and brought the studio system to its knees. Perhaps this is what is needed in the music industry now. If the musicians and artists took a stand and united against the RIAA perhaps they would actually get fair monies for their talent, own their own music, and not have to be contracted for pennies while the Labels make millions on their names.
-my drachma
-Magdalene --"there are 10 types of people in the world, those who read binary, and those who don't"