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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.'"
You mean the music labels aren't there for the protection of the artist!?
It also seems that 75% cut is still a lot for copying an mp3 file and drawing up some paperwork. Even if the label also provided the recording studio, etc, it seems like the artist is still getting the short end of the stick. Why is it that the artist always seems to be the last one to realize the label is screwing him even harder than its screwing the consumer?
... when labels argued that there was no right of resale for customers.
So, RIAA on one hand pays its artists as if it sells its digital files like CDs, but files legal papers claiming that these files are licensed, not sold (so that the doctrine of first sale will not enable reselling the music).
How typical.
I think it is hilarious that the RIAA has convinced artists that it is the file sharers stealing millions from them all while the record labels play their accounting tricks for "recouping" costs.
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/
Somewhere betwixt Faust and Robert Johnson's legend lies the RIAA where they find aspiring musicians they can capitalize on and offer them (seemingly) unlimited resources as they are first starting out and thirstiest for it most.
You're eventually carried off into eternal damnation in hell or eternal litigation in court -- I can't really say which is worse.
My work here is dung.
I do love how the implication here is that it is money alone that will decide this.
I think you're right, but it's an interesting commentary on the state of affairs.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I wonder what they will choose to argue in court. License to prevent reselling of music, or Sale to provide lower cuts to the artist?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I thought we the music industry wanted to sue ReDigi into the ground because iTunes purchases were *not* sales but rather just licenses, and so the first sale doctrine didn't apply. So now its a license when that means they can restrict our right to resell our digital purchases when we no longer want them, but it's a sale when it comes to screwing artists out of money. I feel like maybe they're bit a teensy bit hypocritical.
I sort of feel sorry for the people running these organizations. They have an addiction. To cake. They love cake. They can't get enough of it. But in a way this addiction compels them into a sort of schizophrenia. You see, they want to eat the cake. But they want to still have the cake.
It's sad really.
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.
Boy do these copyright holders like to use specific terms when it benefits them best. Oh, no, you're not buying this, you're just licensing it.
But, when talking to the authors/musicians, they refer to them as sales. Well, then. We'll see how this goes, damn double standards.
It's either a sale or a license. If it's a sale, then it is protected by the first sale doctrine and I can sell/give it away so long as I destroy the original copy. Otherwise, it is a license and the songwriters and musicians get a higher share. You can't have it both ways.
That's the whole point of the RIAA. Their only contributing members are the big labels. They can file lawsuits on behalf of those companies, but artists can only file against the companies directly. So the RIAA itself is pretty much untouchable.
Yes, but iTunes is doing the duplication. They give a master to iTunes, which then proceeds to make copies for each customer. Technically, it could fall under license rather than sale terms.
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.
Right
Whether or not you own or license that copy of your your media when you get it online is something that the MAFIAA would like to remain vague. If it ever gets defined in court, one way or the other, big media is going to get sued all over the place. Currently they call it whatever works best for whatever court case they are involved in.
Owned, or licensed? You can't have it both ways. Not forever anyways.
there's something amuzing here regarding mp3's and schroedingers cat and a Dropbox but i havent worked it out
Actually - that may not matter what iTunes does. It appears that they are licensing the masters for redistribution by Apple. Apple is then selling permanent digital downloads (that, btw, has a specific meaning) - which makes them more akin to a CD sale. How Apple distributes the songs may be irrelevant to the case as the contract in dispute is about how the masters were licensed, or so it seems.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Actually it is both I think.
The music is licensed to Apple for sale to Apple's customer(s) via iTunes.
IMO for the Sister Sledge's purposes the music is licensed since Apple is who pays Warner Music Group.
If it's only a license, and the RIAA companies OWN it, what about taxing that property?
but can we please leave the absolutely needless apple bashing out of completely unrelated article headlines?
They aren't suing over iTunes, they are suing over them being defrauded by their label. Apple nor iTunes has anything to do with the suit except as a delivery vector.
For fucks sake the actual reason for the suit (the label) doesn't even appear in the headline.
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.
That is funny, but bear in mind that the legal truth in this case almost certainly is that they are both -- but reversed from the RIAA's argument.
When a label gives a single master copy to iTunes and grants them a license to reproduce for retail sale, that is a license. That is important, because it means that the label is not incurring the cost of reproduction and distribution of many individual copies, and should not be retaining the pressing costs associated with vinyl records (the rational reason for copies paying the artist less).
When iTunes sells an individual copy to a retail customer, that is a sale -- but it has no bearing on the contract between the artist and the label. The artist's contract interest is in the transaction between the label and iTunes.
From a legal standpoint, it is almost certainly the case that the labels license iTunes to reproduce and distribute, and iTunes sells copies to retail customers. Trying to claim that something else is the case would require a judge with a very pliable sense of reality.
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Well, they could have it both ways. It all depends on what the contract says. My guess is that they keep on using the same old contracts from before they had digital sales. They may not even technically allowed to do digital sales because it doesn't really fall into either category. A physical sale implies that they are creating discs/tapes and selling them. A digital sale obviously doesn't fall into that category. On the other hand, a license is usually something reserved for letting others perform your music, or use the music in a movie or something. Before digital sales, there wasn't really a concept of licensing a song to somebody for personal listening. If you wanted to just listen to something personally, you would buy the CD. If you wanted to perform the music, or broadcast it, or use it in a film or radio play, you would license it. But digital downloads are neither. They aren't physical sales, and they aren't really licenses either, because the record company gets a lot more than 99 cents for license, because they are meant for public peformance, which is why they pay the artist a bigger cut.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
A petard is a small explosive. So like many things, Age of Empires was fairly historically accurate. :) I too used to think the saboteur himself was the petard, but then "hoisted by your own petard" doesn't make as much sense, unless you're playing AoE 2, in which case somebody could convert your petard and then use it against you! Still, "hoist" seems like the wrong word. "caught in your own petard" would seem more accurate, but I guess it is all translated from French in the first place.
I learned all kinds of basic European history from the campaign.
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 it is sold to Apple (so the low royality rate applies to the artist) so that Apple can license it to the customer (thus ensuring that the customer can't sell their copy).
"Hoist with his own petard" is a quote from Hamlet: "For 'tis sport to have the engineer/ Hoist with his own petard"
"Hoist" in this context means 'lifted into the air'
"Petard" is a small explosive device.
"Hoist with his own petard" = blown up by his own bomb.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
I wonder what they will choose to argue in court.
That they manipulated the language in the contract, knowing they were going to sell licenses to resellers to avoid paying artists the higher percentage on each sale, without informing the artist of their intentions. There is legal ambiguity for a party to specify in a contract that he/she/it will "pay a cost if an action is (not) taken" when they know in advance that they themselves are not only eligible to (not) take that action but are knowingly going to (not) take that action after the contract has been signed.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
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-
With the Internet, there are effectively an unlimited number of slots
Not if your target audience lacks access to the Internet. For example, a lot of people aren't willing to pay roughly $30 more per month to replace their dumbphone with a smartphone just to listen to Internet radio instead of FM radio. (Dumbphone plans on Virgin Mobile USA start at $7/mo; smartphone plans on the same carrier start at $35/mo.)
on a single channel that can only show so much
The front page of a web site can only show so much. Not everybody's music video can be on the front page of, say, YouTube at once.
If an artist asks people down loading songs from their website to pay $1.00 and only 7% of the people pay, they make more than if they were in bed with a label.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
70? Don't you mean 120 years after artist's death [wikipedia.org]? It must be allowed for Mikey Mouse to belong to Disney perpetually. You don't want Mickey to fall into wrong hands, do you? Expect another extension in 20 years, not that anyone cares anymore.
The first extension was made after one of the World Wars, when a large number of authors had died at very young age, and this was cutting the number of years of copyright protection down for some people. Arguably quite reasonable at the time. On the other hand, they should really have changed it to "number of years since publishing". If a 20 year old writes some great music, it seems bizarre to me that the length of copyright is different, depending on whether he dies at 21 or at 99. Or that a 20 year old author who dies at 80 gets 60 + X years, while a 70 year old author who dies at 80 only gets 10 + X years.
From a legal standpoint, it is almost certainly the case that the labels license iTunes to reproduce and distribute, and iTunes sells copies to retail customers. Trying to claim that something else is the case would require a judge with a very pliable sense of reality.
Sweet. I like the way you think, because I am short on cash and thought I would resell my iTunes purchased music that I don't listen to anymore to a friend of mine to raise some extra cash. First-sale doctrine being what it is, I bet I could get him to pay me a quarter a song to transfer ownership to him.
Wait... what?
If it was sold, Apple couldn't legally make copies. Ergo it has to be licensed to Apple. IANAL
He effected a bored affect.
Trying to claim that something else is the case would require a judge with a very pliable sense of reality.
This is iTunes. And Apple.
Ever heard of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field?
That the man is dead doesn't matter. That's probably just a distorted reality in and by itself.
Sweet. I like the way you think, because I am short on cash and thought I would resell my iTunes purchased music that I don't listen to anymore to a friend of mine to raise some extra cash. First-sale doctrine being what it is, I bet I could get him to pay me a quarter a song to transfer ownership to him.
Wait... what?
Exactly so, go for it. And if your friends don't want them, there's even a market maker called "ReDigi." If they're relatively popular tracks, I think ReDigi pays more than $0.25 each.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Maybe we can get a judgment to decide the issue once and for all. It's merely icing on the cake to watch the RIAA take both positions simultaneously.
Ibid.
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 ?
But if the copyright to digital versions of the file is what is sold than Apple would be free to make copies.
Selling the right to make copies is CALLED LICENSING. IT IS WHAT LICENSING MEANS.
aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghghghghll
One of the things that pisses me off the most about these fuckers is that their answer to the "Are you selling this to me or licensing this to me?" question always seems to be whichever one means they get paid again (or in this case, whichever one means they get to not pay someone else).
Your CD got scratched? Oooh, sorry, we sold you that music. Buy another copy.
You want to resell that legal MP3? Nope, that's a nontransferable license, no can do. (IIRC, this is currently being battled out in the courts.)
You think we owe you more in royalties? Nah, we sold those songs instead of licensing them. You mad, bro?
The sooner these dinosaurs get done in by their own greed, the better.
~Philly
A pliable sense of reality is a survival trait in the legal profession, unfortunately.