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..."

Comments

So essentially they want people to pay

[antifoidulus]

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.

Re:So essentially they want people to pay

[commodore64_love]

Yeah it is pretty stupid to make Apple, Amazon, or other e-tailers pay for the 30 second samples used to promote songs. Oftentimes I have looked at an artist and thought, "I have no idea who this is," but once I heard the 30-second sample I recognized the song and bought the CD. What RIAA is basically doing is trying to block customers from discovering music which will ultimately hurt sales.

As for the music contained in shows and movies, RIAA already collects a piece of every DVD sale or VHS sale or TV rerun. It makes sense they'd want to collect a few pennies off the internet sale too. So I don't have a problem with it.

Re:So essentially they want people to pay

[amicusNYCL]

FYI, this has nothing to do with the RIAA. This is ASCAP. The term "RIAA" doesn't even appear in TFA.

Re:So essentially they want people to pay

[mysidia]

Doesn't hurt Apple that much, if people still use their store and iTunes library to keep track of everything, to assure lock-in.

Maybe Apple can be kind and replace the "play 30 sec sample" link with a BitTorrent link, for those that choose not to let apple provide the sample for free.

Re:So essentially they want people to pay

[BLKMGK]

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!

Somebody please

[slazzy]

Dig a grave for this dead industry.

Re:Somebody please

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to. They're digging it on their own.

Re:Somebody please

[Daniel_Staal]

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.

Outrage

[oldhack]

Man, this makes SOOOOOOOO angry. Someone should write a song about this.

Re:Outrage

[ZekoMal]

Man, this makes SOOOOOOOO angry.

Saxons Of Otherwise Ordinary Occupations Originate Over On Ontario is angry about this? I hear it's rare to make them mad...

Congress Laws - new Business model?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Congress Laws - new Business model?

[Eil]

I'm still puzzled as to why it isn't universally acknowledged that corporate political campaign donations are the purest form of bribery.

Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constitution

[commodore64_love]

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.

Paying Twice

[Luke Wilson]

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.

Re:Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constituti

[commodore64_love]

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.

Re:They're really trying

[Cheesetrap]

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.

Audit the current system first?

[swanzilla]

FTA:

"We make 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money," said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters' Guild of America. "Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I'm not kidding.

Who in the hell has Rick's other 7.1 cents?

Re:Audit the current system first?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Who in the hell has Rick's other 7.1 cents?

Man, Rick got rolled.

Re:Audit the current system first?

[Dhalka226]

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?

Free preview

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I'll give them a free 30 second preview of the body part they can kiss. (Limited time only, restrictions apply, one per customer.)

Tired of the re-definition of performance.

[Bunny Guy]

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.

What the fuck

[ZorbaTHut]

Apparently, the music industry can't obtain the fees through negotiations

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.

Re:ah wait a sec - this is ASCAP!

[Brian Gordon]

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.