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RIAA Not Sharing Settlement Money With Artists
Klatoo55 writes "Various artists are considering lawsuits in order to press for their share of the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars the RIAA has obtained from settlements with services such as Bolt, KaZaA, and Napster. According to TorrentFreak's report on the potential action, there may not even be much left to pay out after monstrous legal fees are taken care of. The comments from the labels all claim that the money is on its way, and is simply taking longer due to difficulties dividing it all up."
I'm no fan of RIAA, but the RIAA lawsuits aren't about recouping money for the artists. That would be a ludicrous business model (one where you let people steal your product and then sue them to recover you loses on a routine basis). The RIAA lawsuits are about raising the risk/reward ratio to make people decide not to steal music. It is about punishing bad behavior, not recouping lost royalties. Even if, in the end, RIAA burns every dollar it "recoups" on ongoing legal fees, that's fine and acceptable. The point is to hurt the downloaders, not help the artists WITH THE LEGAL JUDGMENTS. They serve to help the artists by stopping the illegal downloading.
Harry Nilsson wrote "One", Three Dog Night merely covered it... WITHOUT ASKING!!!
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
You don't have to ask to cover a song. You just have to let the relevant administrative body (APRA in Australia, I believe it falls to ASCAP et al. in America) know about any recording or performance you have done of it, so that the artist will be recompensed for your use of the song.
That only applies to live music. ASCAP is responsible for licensing musical performances. If I want to perform music that ASCAP licenses, I pay them a fee and get to use the work.
A typical bar featuring music will typically pay ASCAP a recurring fee to cover the songs in that catalog and be allowed to perform any of them. You don't technically have to pay ASCAP a fee just because you have music, but you're in for a world of hurt if you get caught with an unlicensed performance of a covered work.
The big dirty secret here is that ASCAP doesn't tell anybody how it is that they distribute the license money. It's incredibly hard to know if relatively unknown artists are being compensated fairly.
"Live" performances are radio, TV, phone systems, intercoms and any other venue where the main use of the music is listening to rather than a copy of. Frequently places will just buy a license through a third party which pays the fees as well as provides the music itself to simplify the whole process. Muzak is one of the more common outfits that provides the service.
Actually, there is a website that ties the RIAA to recordings you may be considering purchasing. They also give a detailed structure of record label ownership and reasons justifying inclusion / exclusion of controversial labels from their index.
I prefer the convenience of a search engine like RIAA radar, but if you don't trust it, you could always go straight to the source.
A simple RoTFA would clarify it. The RIAA per se didn't get the settlements, EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music did. The people complaining they are not getting any of it are the managers of various high profile artists, such as the Rolling Stones, Korn, Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Van Halen, REO Speedwagon and Seal.
They used to extort abusive "public performance" fees from bars and restaurants with a jukebox or radio on.
This is just the latest in their continuing line of business.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
have you ever done coke and fucked a whore? Its for everyone.
The songwriter/publisher hold the copyrights to words and music. Harry Fox and ASCAP pay the publishers, who are supposed to split it 50/50 with the songwriter.
The record label usually owns the sound recording copyright, although the artist can ask for it back after 35 years. This is the copyright which people are being sued for allegedly infringing upon.
If the artist did not write their own songs, they don't own any copyrights. The artists are paid according to the terms of their contracts. Unless there's a clause that deals specifically with this issue, the record label is under no legal obligation to give the artists a cut from the lawsuits.
Although this is more proof (as if we really needed it) that the RIAA lies every time it repeats the "it's all about the artists" mantra, I think that they are probably immune to being sued for it, except perhaps for the times they did it in a Senate or House subcommittee hearing or in court, and then only if they were under oath.
The artworks were paid for just once. The problem is that for hollywood, etc., once isn't enough.
See my journal, I write things there
"Why in the 21st century should we suddenly expect art to be free?"
Because all of a sudden in the 21st century the costs of reproducing said art has dropped to zero (well, as close to zero as you're likely to ever see). So once the artist has been compensated for the initial act of creativity, there's nothing left to pay for.
The record companies made a killing for decades by controlling the distribution channels, forcing people on both ends of the equation to be beholden to them. Now they're not needed anymore. The artist can create and then for very little marginal cost distribute 1, 10, 10,000 copies. All that remains is to decide how to compensate the artist for the original creative act.