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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..."
Dig a grave for this dead industry.
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Were it not for the fact that it would cause iTunes to implode (fiscally speaking), I would suggest that Apple simply remove the 30 second streamsand sell everything based on title alone, or make them available "for a fee" that nobody would EVER pay. Let's see how well that works.
Of course, the other explanation for their request is that the music they're selling mostly sucks bad enough that exposing 30 seconds of it will kill the sale.
I use iTunes for my iPhone - and I never buy anything there, I buy it all on Amazon because I prefer the more portable MP3 format. You seem to think that purchasing from Amazon and importing into your collection is difficult. Nothing could be further from the truth!! Well, not if you are running Windows anyway. You see Amazon has an MP3 download application that will place the downloads in an area you designate AND it will import them into iTunes automatically. -> http://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/help/amd.html/ref=sv_dmusic_3 This is a simple application and one that they displayed to me when I purchased an album in order to "help me". Honestly I really like using Amazon except for their new policy for pricing up more popular tunes. Seldom is it that I cannto find what I want and when that occurs I do sometimes turn to iTunes.
As for this current idea to charge for these samples. RIAA listen up - when I am browsing through a "store" and I think I've found what I want I listen to it briefly to see if it's the right song or more foten the right version of the song. If I could not do this I would go back to how I used to get music - swapping HDD with friends or perhaps using a Torrent. I have gone legit primarily because DRM has been dropped from purchased music and because the quality finally meets MY expectations (mostly). If you prevent various online stores from allowing me to listen to samples, and especially if you try to setup your OWN store and push out established companies - which I wouldn't put past you with dick moves like this - then I WILL go back to how I used to get music. Most likely, due to your stupid hounding of torrent sites, I will simply swap drives again and go back to buying used CD - which I will then sell right back after ripping. I'd prefer to stick to buying legit frankly but.....
RIAA - get a freaking clue!
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I call distinction without a difference. Publishers in ASCAP and record labels in RIAA tend to have the same parent companies.
This a repeat of the game they play with radio stations. When you hear really long concert commercials with the band's track playing the whole time it's promoters gaming the ASCAP system for extra radio plays. I think radio stations have to count a "play" at 15 seconds or something, and now ASCAP want's samples at a "play" rate.
We're still dealing with fallout from the "digital" versus CD distribution. Just like performance artists don't get $2.50 ringtone royalties (those go directly to the publisher) the per track royalties ASCAP gets for CDs (and probably digital rentals of movies/TV shows) aren't contractually written for "digital" mediums at all, or for a reduced rate. ASCAP lost it's chances with Hollywood on this one fare and square. They tried to hold up early DVD releases of TV seasons (Freaks and Geeks was a famous one on Slashdot that actually had to reedit soundtracks because ASCAP artists wouldn't budge) playing contractual games and lawsuits. They won some lawsuits but in a limited enough fashion Hollywood was able to get the last laugh by getting "blanket" licensing for thing like CDs and TV seasons directly from the artists before even letting them work, and added the "digital" parts to distribution for TV, movie, DVD, etc. ASCAP is trying to end-run contracts and get Congress to create yet another new "on the internet" fee for "web distribution", but not the same web distribution covered under the webcasting clearing house (same rules as radio play) or the "sale" royalties for things like iTunes and emusic (counts as "CD" sales, not webcasting).