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Sale Or License? Sister Sledge Sues Over ITunes
Hugh Pickens writes "The Hollywood Reporter reports that members of the iconic disco-era musical group Sister Sledge have filed a major class action lawsuit against Warner Music Group claiming that the music giant's method for calculating digital music purchases as 'sales' rather than 'licenses' has cheated them out of millions of dollars from digital music sales. Songwriters typically make much less money when an album is 'sold' than they do when their music is 'licensed' (the rationale derives from the costs that used to be associated with the physical production of records) but record labels have taken the position that music sold via such digital stores as iTunes should be counted as 'sales' rather than licenses. The difference in revenue can be significant as Sister Sledge claim their record deal promises 25 percent of revenue from licenses but only 5-1/2% to 6-1/2% of net from sales. Eminem's publisher brought a nearly identical claim against Universal Music Group and won an important decision at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 when the 9th Circuit ruled that iTunes' contract unambiguously provided that the music was licensed. The lawsuit argued that record companies' arrangements with digital retailers resembled a license more than it did a sale of a CD or record because, among other reasons, the labels furnished the seller with a single master recording that it then duplicated for customers. 'Unlike physical sales, where the record company manufactures each disc and has incremental costs, when they license to iTunes, all they do is turn over one master,' says attorney Richard S. Busch. 'It's only fair that the artist should receive 50 percent of the receipts.'"
Age of Empires II always made me think a petard was a medieval suicide bomber. Those guys always got blown up with their own bomb.
Close. The last five letters are the same.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
If only there was some group who represented the interests of the artists who could go after these thieves who are stealing money from the mouths of the artists! Some select group who represented all the artists who could enjoin a legal action that would get the money that artists deserve back from the people who are stealing it from them.
Burn the land and boil the sea........
Both. It's a license or a sale depending on which benefits the RIAA more. Apparently, music files are like photons being waves or particles. They're both until observed (brought into a court of law) when they collapse into a single (RIAA-benefiting) state.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
there's something amuzing here regarding mp3's and schroedingers cat and a Dropbox but i havent worked it out
So says the Anonymous Coward who brings nothing of substance to support his claims of knowledge of the music industry...
Good god, the French predicted rocket jumping! :O
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
No, Shakespeare did. It was in the same play where he wrote the immortal lines, "Pray tell, doth this teabag ail you? Cry some more, biatch, cry some more. Thy tears are sweet, for I havest pwned thee."
He also wrote, "Truly, thou art hax -- I can seest by the pixels." But that was a different play.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Both.
Schrödinger's Music ?