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

one would hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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...

Re:one would hope...

[DannyO152]

It isn't facilities per se, it's the capital to book time at a A-List facility with the amenities, such as a room where you can turn it up to 11 or an engineer who has 20 years of experience and knows where the mikes go, as well as the cuttiing-edge technology. That being said lot of people are doing a lot of work at home: demos, vanity projects, composition/arrangement, pre-production, and self-publishing. Cutting-edge technology starts in the studios and within five years becomes available for semi-pros working at home at low cost. At home, no sweat, you can have better sound capture, shaping, and playback equipment than Sam Phillips had for Elvis Presley, then Geoff Emerick had for the Beatles.

A recording label offers four things: sensibility, marketing, distribution, and capital. Successful independents may have less of the last one and "more" of the first. Because big labels have enough capital to fund a lot of failures, I think they have less sensibility -- in any case, there's less risk-taking at the big five (or is it four this year?). In theory, a label signs an artist because the label thinks its audience will buy things the artist records. Again, at the big label level, because of all the capital and politics, deals happen all the time where the artist never releases a single track and somebody knew that was going to happen at the time they approved the deal.

Moving tracks, even giving them away, is tough. Every day when commuting I walk through a half dozen guys near Hollywood's Graumman's Chinese offering free discs and headphones in order that people listen to their discs. The encouraging news is that there are still a few places on the radio and many on the internet which play music because the dj likes it and not because there's a deal some where. The better news is that, just like in the 50s when Chuck Berry wrote about mailing a letter to the local dj, web sites and e-mail addresses now exist where one can ask "what was it that was played," or "where can I buy it," or, "here's something that maybe you'd like to put on the air." The last couple of weeks I've been listening to KCSN out of California State University at Northridge and this seems to be exactly what's happening.

Ask me, the two biggest mistakes that the big labels made were to insist on DRM on all internet sold tracks and to get the US federal government to institute a draconian rights fee that drove out specialty internet radio broadcasters in the late 90s. The record companies need fans and those fans occur, not because the artist is having a 48 hour news cycle about choices in underwear, but because people hear the music. It's in Clive Davis' 20+ year old book for chrissakes, when people hear good music, they'll go out of their way to get it.

Back to today's topic: because the record companies cannot get Apple to raise its prices, they are trying to codify their under-paying of artist and publishing royalties in order to avoid the question of how to replace the revenue lost because customers may now pass on those weak tracks that were part of the package. It is a show business pattern to try and sell the B material by packaging it with the A material, so we can cut them some slack on that. The industry used to make their nut on the sales of 45s and the albums were the gravy. But consolidation, trimming rosters, and going to the government to change the rules (royalties, extension of copyright on British recordings) in order to artificially extend the 60s, 70s, and 80s strikes me as foolish, mainly because the audience changed. Today's teen-ager and young adult has a different pop culture. When the zeitgeist changes, get back to singles. Make lots of them quickly, for low-cost and make them so it doesn't kill you when a hundred fail. Get back to having a roster of hungry and talented producers, writers, studio musicians, and artists, producing items for hire and throw them together in Monday morning pitch sessions which cull the singles from the demos. Remember how Motown went from one person to the soundtrack for a time; remember that being the soundtrack for a time is a three decade business plan.

Please refer back to this article

[A beautiful mind]

...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.

Obviously its the other way round

[arun_s]

They say that the rates (which were placed in 1981) don't apply the same way to new technologies.

Technology has made it easier for the distribution of media. Its them who should be getting lesser 'royalties' for each copy sold, not the artists.

RIAA does *not* represent artists

[JoostSchuttelaar]

when the RIAA claims to do anything in the future for the sake of artists. The Recording Industry Association of America represents the recording industry, like record labels and distributors, not artists.

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).

Re:RIAA does *not* represent artists

[Maestro4k]

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

Yes, but they like to use the artists for sympathy in their anti-piracy propaganda. But don't take my word for it, check out this page on their website where we have the following (emphasis added):

Though it would appear that record companies are still making their money and that artists are still getting rich, these impressions are mere fallacies. Each sale by a pirate represents a lost legitimate sale, thereby depriving not only the record company of profits, but also the artist, producer, songwriter, publisher, retailer, ... and the list goes on.

...

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the creative artists lose. Musicians, singers, songwriters and producers don't get the royalties and fees they've earned. Virtually all artists (95%) depend on these fees to make a living. The artists also depend on their reputations, which are damaged by the inferior quality of pirated copies sold to the public.

So yes, they DO claim they're doing this for the sake of the artists, you and the grandparent are both correct. The RIAA are claiming to be fighting piracy at least partially for the artists' benefit (although note it says "perhaps most importantly" about the artists) while at the same time trying to stab the artists in the back (again) by lowering their royalties even though they say that 95% of artists depend on those royalties to make a living. That last bit about artists' reputations suffering from sales of inferior quality pirated copies is kinda questionable in this day and age. A pirated CD should sound the same as the real thing, sometimes better since they'll remove any DRM crap from it.

Personally I don't see how they do it, having a soul-ectomy must be a job requirement.

What are these people SMOKING??????

[Lloyd_Bryant]

First I read the slashdot article, and thought to myself "okay, the editors are smoking crack again".

Then I read the referenced article.

I owe the editors an apology for my mistaken assumption.

From TFA:

As quoted by The Hollywood Reporter,"Mechanical royalties currently are out of whack with historical and international rates," RIAA executive VP and General Counsel Steven Marks said. "We hope the judges will restore the proper balance by reducing the rate and moving to a more flexible percentage rate structure so that record companies can continue to create the sound recordings that drive revenues for music publishers."

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.

Good.

[AngstAndGuitar]

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.

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

[kripkenstein]

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.

That day has already arrived, and it has brought little change. We already have lots of artists, mainly the kind who can't get signed up by a record label, who publish their work online. It is only the tiny minority that get signed up by a major record label that we hear about though, and they are precisely the ones who will not 'cut out the middleman', because for them, the RIAA actually do provide a service: they advertise and brainwash the public into liking those choice few artists who are blessed with RIAA's stamp, leading to a tiny minority of artists making virtually all of the income in the music industry. How many artists are played on MTV? Not many.

[The RIAA's] greed will be their undoing. I wonder why it hasn't been their undoing in the past though?

The problem is that the public is very easily controlled by advertising and the media. So long as that is true, the RIAA will be able to create a few 'big acts', and to get the public to listen only to them. A few 'big acts' are easily controlled by the RIAA, especially since those acts will only make money as long as the public is convinced that they like them - which is the only thing the RIAA is good at.

In this media-driven age, I don't expect things to change anytime soon. But yes, cheap recording and publishing technology is helpful, even if only in a small way.

Re:This could be a good thing

[Evilest Doer]

The Newcomen Engine people are still pissed at the Watt people for breaking their monopoly on manually-operated steam engines.

And Galley Slaves 'R' Us are still pissed at the Newcomen Engine people for making bottom fall out of the rowing industry.

Re:This could be a good thing

[guice]

Wow, Metallica finally learned? Took them long enough. Remember, they were the original artists FOR DRM based music and FOR strict control over their music and even FOR the RIAA. It would seem somebody has changed their tunes. Finally...

RIAA = Middlemen - Excise.

[Cordath]

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.

What the fuck man, have you no compassion?

[Adult film producer]

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

Oblig. article links

[Knuckles]

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

Mechanical Royalties != Artist Royalties

[VoxCombo]

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