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ASCAP Says Apple Should Pay For 30-sec. Song Samples
CNet reports on a new money battle brewing between those who generate music and those who profit from selling it on the Net. "Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are making preparations to one day collect performance fees from Apple and other e-tailers for not just traditional music downloads but for downloads of films and TV shows as well. Those downloads contain music after all. These groups even want compensation for iTunes' 30-second song samples. ... Apparently, the music industry can't obtain the fees through negotiations. They have begun lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would require anyone who sells a download to pay a performance fee..."
for advertising their product for free.... um, pretty much EVERY other industry in the world would like their products advertised for free, and if someone did that for them they certainly wouldn't sue over it.
Monstar L
I'm sure if I presented a thesis saying that my new form of business model required passing laws in Congress requiring people to give me money at the mere mention of my product, I'd be laughed out of school.
And yet, this seems to be turning into a reality?
Maybe what we need isn't just a government that has its hands off of business, we need businesses to keep their hands off the government too.
No need to. They're digging it on their own.
Amendment XXVIII - Strike the following: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Replace with: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Times not to exceed 14 years to Authors, or 25 years for Inventors, the limited Privilege to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
The actual time limits can be debated, but they need to be set in the constitution, not left to a congress that can be bribed with corporate donations.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The makers of the film or TV show had to pay for the song in the first place. The label was already paid for the use and can't extract money again from the redistributor.
P.S.
I should probably explain: I think "Right" needs to be changed to "Privilege" for the simple reason that rights are timeless. They are an innate quality of being human and never expire. Therefore a limited-term copyright is not a right, but merely a privilege extended by the ruling government.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
They really want to shoot themselves in the foot, don't they?
They don't have feet, they're an entity... what they need is to be sucker-punched in their Accounting department and then kicked repeatedly in the Legal until they promise to stop being a dick.
It would be interesting if Apple did a test where they removed samples from say from the top 1000 songs, then provided 30 second samples for say 50 and calculated how much the 30 second sample actually generated in sales revenue.
The samples on iTunes allow people to figure out if they want to legally buy a song that actually generates revenue for the artists. If I can't sample what I'm deciding to buy, chances are I'd most likely go straight to limewire and get it that way, because these songs are non refundable.
All ASCAP seem to be doing here is encouraging more piracy, most people are generally happy to pay for media if its easy to obtain and its not a difficult process that you have to jump through endless micro payments, confusing license agreements and rights managment that is unreliable. iTunes is making it easy for artists to make revenue off the internet but that is just not enough it seems for those greedy bastards.
Well, duh: They don't want you paying for an unknown artist. They want you paying for their over-hyped sensation-of-the-week.
Because being able to create and throw away those sensations-of-the-week is what keeps the record companies in business: It's their advertising, their handling, and their contacts that make that possible. If you start buying artists you've never heard of because you like their music their entire business model goes out the window.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
It's not a performance if I ...
Play your CD
Hear your Song on the Radio
Look at your album jacket
It's a performance if:
You come to my house and play,
Hold a concert
Play on a street corner or a subway
Everyone in the chain of production needs to quit pretending that somehow, each time that CD is played, they have put in a personal appearance. // rant off
Performance as defined above is the method the bulk of working musicians actually make money. The RIAA just doesn't want to admit it.
Here's how I see this conversation going.
ASCAP> Give us lots of money!
Apple> You're already getting lots of money.
ASCAP> We want *more* money!
Apple> No.
ASCAP> We *demand* more money!
Apple> No.
ASCAP> If you don't give us more money, we'll take our music off your service!
Apple> No you won't, and we both know it.
ASCAP> WAAAAH GIVE US MORE MONEY
C'mon. If they wanted the extra fees so bad, they'd take their music off. Obviously they don't - they just want the government to step in when their own demands for money fell flat.
Why don't they make their own music distributor? Oh, that's right, because that takes work, and they don't want to do work. They just want free money.
I feel so sorry for them.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Let's pretend his story is true, and that he got less than 9.1 cents for some ridiculous-but-conceivable reason. In other words, take that inconsistency off the table.
If he's receiving a check for two cents, nobody is buying his fucking music. Why is it that he seems to believe he should be making "a bunch of money?" Would this horrible insult to his right to be rich for no reason be somehow mitigated if he had received a check for 50 cents from his one sale instead?
No, it's business. Men in suits sit around quoting business concepts at each other until they convince themselves they have a good idea.
They're executives, the way they work is by outsourcing their specialized thinking to others while they manage. I'm sure they honestly don't know how stupid they look. They read a report that mentions in passing the 30-second preview, they reel and can't understand why they're giving away content for free. They call in the secretary and set up a meeting with their iTunes lead. The poor guy tries to explain how obviously it's of enormous benefit to offer a preview. The MBA hears some engineer admitting that he's following his personal opinion in a matter of possibly huge importance to the company. The MBA looks for a real report done by Research with real numbers and tables and projections that confirms the engineer's opinion-- and there are none. He assigns a team in Research to investigate the matter and recommend any disciplinary action against the engineer. Research consults Legal, they say they have no contract with iTunes for getting paid for their content when it's in a 30 second sample. They contact the MBA, give him a preliminary report that confirms his suspicions. He sets up a meeting with Apple to discuss future payment. MBA gets laughed out, MBA lobbies congress.
It IS greed. There are successful businesses, and then there are businesses who care about naught but lining their and their shareholders' pockets with money. Time, time, time, and time again, history has shown that you can run a business that people like and make money, or you can be a greedy monster and make money. It works for some time, but will those businesses be around in 100 years? If you go around the world and look at some of the companies that HAVE been around for over a century (a lot of food companies have), you'll find that the workers there are typically treated well and are very happy.
It's the same as the old king analogy. As a king, you can rule with kindness or you can rule by fear. By kindness and you can have everything you want (and everything your prosperous country can produce) and will be remembered forever. By fear and you can have everything (only what your pitiful starving country can give you) and will be forgotten over the centuries. For some reason, a lot of leaders tend to choose the latter.