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RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio
ISurfTooMuch writes "With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. 'SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'"
As far as I know, this is no different from other performance rights organizations like ASCAP/BMI/etc. right? They collect money for everyone, whether the artist is registered with them or not. The only question is whether we need yet another performance rights organization...
The article is overly inflammatory, adding emphasis to quotations (which the author/editor doesn't claim) to the word "compulsory" in "compulsory license". Obviously, they didn't do much research into what the compulsory license is in relation to copyright law.
The compulsory license is largely a way of ensuring that, if a content distributor wishes, it can use certain types of copyrighted works in certain ways. An example includes making a cover of a copyrighted song. Usually, royalties are paid to the songwriter in such cases, and you can work out favorable terms to both parties. However, if the parties don't come to agreement, the content distributor can instead agree to the compulsory license and agree to pay said artist based on the published rates. As long as this happens, the original copyright holder cannot sue (because he/she is getting paid as dictated by copyright law).
In short, this means that you can indeed make a license directly between you and the copyright holder itself. However, if you're going to use the compulsory license, there is a procedure that has to be in place aside from mailing an unexpected check to the copyright holder... There's no proof you paid!
So, it's a bit different than the article's author paints it. Of course, most wouldn't agree that the copyright holder should be a member of SoundScan in order to get their royalties, but it's an entirely different issue.
your father was correct. in fact, as another poster mentioned, the eq curve still bears the name of the organization (RIAA EQ CURVE), and basically describes how vinyl should be "encoded" during mastering, and "decoded" during playback.
it's an issue with vinyl, because if the cutting head moves too much (from bass frequencies), it can actually cut into the adjacent groove, so you can compensate by turning the head in more each turn, but the storage capacity (length of time) suffers.
interestingly, how bass energy is dealt with today is super duper limiting -- this can almost be thought of as dynamic eq, but it's not. it takes place in the time domain rather than the frequency, but when a blip of low end energy hits the limiter, it turns it down -- coupled with the make up gain, this effectively turns everything else up.
this is why modern music SOUNDS LIKE ALL CAPS.
mr c
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
Allofmp3.com collects royalties of all the music they sell and offer it to the RIAA. They cry and moan and refuse the money because they don't like their business model. Now suddenly its completely ok to collect royalties for someone else when you don't have the copyright for the work, but only so far as the RIAA is the one doing the collecting.
According to the SoundExchange FAQ,
this only applies if you want to rely on SoundExchange to get you a statutory license.
So stations willing to negotiate directly with the artists and get nonstatutory licenses,
wouldn't have to pay SoundExchange royalties. (Although that said, they apparently forbid
SoundExchange members from granting separate licenses, so this would only work with artists
who are willing to boycott SoundExchange...)
(ObDisclaimer: me am not copyright attorney though)
>;k
This is from the FAQ:
What licenses does SoundExchange administer?
The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 (DPRA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) granted a performance right in sound recordings for certain digital and satellite transmissions. In exchange for this new right, SRCOs are subject to a compulsory license for the use of their music, provided the user complies with those conditions set forth in the copyright law. SoundExchange was established to administer the collection and distribution of royalties from such compulsory licenses taken by noninteractive streaming services that use satellite, cable or Internet methods of distribution.
For those of you who are caught up in the language, let me make it crystal clear for you: There is a license which artists must grant under law, a compulsory license, which allows certain digital performances. If you record a song, anyone may use it under the terms of that license.
As with the GPL, anyone may accept. Anyone may decline. If you decline, you have no rights to perform the song under the license. You may still acquire an alternate license directly from the copyright owner and do anything the owner authorizes, including perform the song in a manner similar to what is allowed by the compulsory license.
You owe fees to SoundExchange only if you accept the compulsory license and perform the song under those terms and conditions.
Now, SoundExchange doesn't want you to know this. They have very carefully crafted the language in their documentation to lead you to the impression that paying them is the only option. Nevertheless, if you read carefully you'll find that's not what they actually said. And if you read the relevant sections of the DPRA and DMCA, you'll find that's not what the law says either.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Punk was traditionally released on independent and self-published labels.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
For a production run the masters are cut on a lathe then the presses are then made from the master. "test-pressings" (which aren't actually pressed) and low volume runs (dub plates) are cut directly to acetate.
Oblig wikipedia
The U.S. Gov't gave themt he right to do this. It's not theft, it's not criminal, it's just corrupt. Your anger should not be aimed at the unnelected construct of law who's only legal purpose for existing is profit - it should be aimed at the assholes in gov't who did this. I'll bet you your congressman dosen't know about this.. maybe you should tell him.
IANAL, but I figure you could still sue SoundExchange and argue that the LOC doesn't have the right to create a national monopoly that not only violates the Taft Act and RICO, but constitutes tortious interference (an illegal interference with your right to enter into a contract, such as a contract via which you grant a net broadcaster a right to stream your content without royalty payments) on an unheard of scale. But you'd have to have some pretty big bucks to file and pursue the case, because it would probably have to go through a couple of rounds of appeals and eventually be argued before the Supreme Court.
OTOH, as is the argument with many monopolies, in trying to justify their existence, they'll argue back about how their monopoly creates efficiencies and prevents chaos, and is actually a benefit to the people.
But it's the fact that SoundExchange doesn't allow that royalty exemption that will be their undoing, because a court can rule that their monopoly has been abused and creates a greater harm to the public than any good their monopoly creates. They should neither have the ability to force you to sign up with them and pay fees to get your content heard or collect royalties against your will. And because they do so, they create a public harm that goes against the intent of any law that allows the LOC to grant such a monopoly. At minimum, a court could tell them that they must amend their anticompetitive practices and policies or face being stripped of their monopoly.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic