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Spotify, Google, Pandora, Amazon Go To US Appeals Court To Overturn Royalty Increase (variety.com)

Posted by msmash on from the money-talks dept.

Spotify, Google, Pandora and Amazon have teamed up to appeal a controversial ruling by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board that, if it goes through, would increase payouts to songwriters by 44%, Variety is reporting. From the report: A joint statement from the first three of those companies reads: "The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), in a split decision, recently issued the U.S. mechanical statutory rates in a manner that raises serious procedural and substantive concerns. If left to stand, the CRB's decision harms both music licensees and copyright owners. Accordingly, we are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the decision."

The four companies all filed with the court separately. Sources say that Apple Music is alone among the major streaming services in not planning to appeal -- as confirmed by songwriters' orgs rushing to heap praise on Apple while condemning the seemingly unified front of the other digital companies.

35 comments

  1. How does it by rossdee · · Score: 1

    harn copyright owners

    1. Re: How does it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple is not biting the hand that feeds it? How very strange /s

    2. Re:How does it by Orphis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      More forced royalties makes the services more expensive to run, which in turn is making the subscription more expensive.

      A more expensive subscription means lots of users will drop out and go back to pirating, meaning absolutely no revenue from them for copyright owners. Models probably predict that more people would leave than is offset by the increased revenue.

      The notable difference between Apple Music and the other services is that Apple never cared for it and can afford to run it at a loss.

    3. Re:How does it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The songwriters aren't the copyright holders even though they were the ones who created the primary, copyrightable content. Thus the businesses which required transfer of copyright in order to use their publishing services would have to pay them more money.

      I think the bigger issue is there's a Copyright Royalty Board which can set and change rates across an industry. In the age when media can include or be linked with metadata about all those involved in its making, claims that it's too hard to pay people and that instead there must be a single organization which gets paid is bullshit.

    4. Re:How does it by Immerman · · Score: 2

      It means that the copyright owners have to pay the artists more rather than keeping the profit for themselves.

      "Copyright owner" is generally trotted out to make it sound like the publisher, that usually owns the copyright, is actually the artist(s) that originally created the work.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    5. Re: How does it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is 44% increase on a .001% share? Royalties are ridiculously low for living artist who created the content. It is ridiculously high for copyright owners who acquired the rights.

    6. Re:How does it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forced royalties, more royalties, etc.- isn't that kind of missing the point? Everything I've read says that the majority of artists not getting streamed a gazillion times aren't really making much money because they're undercut by all the streaming services to begin with. I'm not for putting more money in the pockets of anyone besides the artists, but just chalking it up to "subscriptions will be more expensive" seems short sighted and oversimplified. Perhaps they'll be more expensive, perhaps not. Perhaps if more big name artists were pushing back against the profits streaming services make in comparison to what most artists get paid it will change.

  2. Fuck the owners by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Without the creators they are nothing.

  3. Greed vs. greed by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    Whoever wins, we lose.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Greed vs. greed by Quake1v1 · · Score: 0

      I assume by "we", you mean the non-content contributing public.

    2. Re:Greed vs. greed by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Not only. Because no matter how this ends up, eventually it's gonna make everyone unhappy. Google and other bigwigs will not foot the bill but instead use their market share and leverage to muscle a better deal for themselves, making it harder for any emerging competition to get a foothold, especially since this competition will have to pick up the slack here. Artists won't see more money for the very same reason but with more work and poor PR, and everyone else will just suffer through weeks and months of uncertainty and kinda-sorta working services that are unavailable at the most inconvenient times.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Greed vs. greed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoever wins, we lose.

      Though, when you think of the disparity of what content creators are getting paid for streaming, versus what they get paid for other sales, we have a situation where streaming companies are make huge sums of money selling other people's product and paying them next to nothing.

      The law as it stood had creators getting paid a total of 10% of streaming revenues, and this is going to 15%.

      I don't think wanting to be paid for the actual product is greedy, I just think the system was set up completely imbalanced to favor the big companies who made all of the money.

      Will this increase consumer prices? Probably. Does it make sense for billion dollar companies to pay fractions of a cent for song plays? Nope.

      I hope they lose this and get told to fuck off, because the current situation of huge companies making massive money off of other people's work. Funny how these people are in favor of IP holder rights unless it's they who are expected to give up a cut of the pie.

    4. Re:Greed vs. greed by radarskiy · · Score: 2

      Streaming already pays higher rates than radio to the labels. If artists are receiving lower rates form the labels, I think I see where the problem is.

      (As always, the trick is to wrap your labor with a corporation.)

    5. Re:Greed vs. greed by Quake1v1 · · Score: 1

      "Artists won't see more money" - if they own their own publishing they most certainly will see more money. That's how publishing works.

  4. The real issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Is that too much money goes to those who dont create... distribution, share holders, marketing and shit like that.
    If they'd be realistic with it, they could easily pay the artist way more and still get a price drop on the services.... but those ritch motherfucker want to get ever more ritcher so... all the rest pay in a way or another.

    1. Re:The real issue by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      I don't agree that the guy who spent a couple hours/days writing a song should collect even more money at the expense of the people who invested in and continue to pay for the distribution of that song to listeners. Servers, software maintenance, bandwidth, salaries and benefits for all the people who keep all that running aren't free.

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    2. Re:The real issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shill. Those things cost practically nothing, seeing how they sell the same song over and over and over. And they have many songs. If someone spend a few hours/days running a server, they transferred hundreds of thousands of songs effortlessly and aren't entitled to much pay.

  5. And the actual artists will get... ? by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Once all the middlemen (dustributor, rights holder, records majors, whatever...) are factored in and these extra 44% get distributed, the original song's artists themselves will get an extra 4 ct.
    Per month.
    In total.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:And the actual artists will get... ? by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Note that this is the writer, not necessarily the musician, from my hazy memory they get this amount directly which dates back to radio days. Its always seemed strange to me that there was an external entity setting the rate that song writers got per play instead of a contract while its fine for the musicians to get shackled by unreasonable contracts and MPIAA accounting.

  6. total greed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Songwriters got into this business knowing the pay was shit. What next? Pay elementary school teachers six figures because they are "important"?

    1. Re:total greed by magusxxx · · Score: 1

      *raises hand* Well...yes.

      --
      Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
    2. Re:total greed by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Well of course, teachers with a 5 figure salary are going to quit and get a job in sanitation with higher pay and more respect.

  7. exactly by goombah99 · · Score: 2

    Presumably the purpose of copyrights is the public good, not the enrichment of anyone.
    there are some ways I can think of that this works

    1. Reward the copyright holders (via roylaties). The purpose of the reward is to encourage the copyright holder to share with the public their materials and perhaps encourage these creative people to make more things the public needs/wants.

    2. It enables the creation of a market place. Market places are efficient methods of distribution. Without them the impact on the public of a new good isn't felt. SO we need market places and the abilility to sell rights for royalties fosters the creation of this.

    There's some tension between these in that exorbitant royalties would crush the market place lower the multiplier on distribution and decreasing the impact on the public.

    In a completely free market an artists profit motive might tend to optimize this because they would want to maximize royalty*copies sold. SO they maximimize both their incentive to share and the distribution in a balanced way.

    One problem comes up if the royalty is fixed externally. Then there's no mechanism to price-adjust for that maximization. It's kind of like a command economy rather than a capitlaist one. And that was always the central flaw of the pure communist model-- setting those prices without the information gathered by the market on demand results in sub optimal production.

    One the other hand you also can kill a market if the distributors have to negotiate individuall with every single person. Thus setting a fixed royalty may make some markets possible.

    SO the only real argument google and others have is that somehow the command economy has selected the wrong royalty rate. I wonder if they would make that argument if the rate were set too low?? that too would harm the public as well. So we can't really trust them to make this argument. Better to trust the artists who have an incentive to maximize public impact.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:exactly by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2

      Presumably the purpose of copyrights is the public good, not the enrichment of anyone.

      Eh, well, the purpose of copyrights is the public good, yes, achieved via the potential enrichment of someone as an incentive to produce a work and make it available to the public.

    2. Re: exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In all of human history âenrichmentâ(TM) in monitary terms has rarely been the drive for creative and artistic output. You may have been paid to play, but paid to compose has always been rare and often no more than âoeroom and boardâ and certainly with no income going to your descendants. Mozart was buried in a paupers grave remember.

  8. Apple plays it safe by Confused · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If Amazon, Spotify etc will succeed, it'll wont have to increase the payouts either. -> Win and they can tell the artist Apple was on their side. Perhaps even increase the payout by a few small percent to become to more attractive to artists again.

    If the lawsuit fails, Amazon, Spotify etc will be the bad bullies with egg on their faces. -> Win for Apple again. No legal cost and they have positioned themselves at the side of the artists.

    Whatever happens, Apple doesn't lose by letting others take the fall or doing the work.

    Clever.

    1. Re:Apple plays it safe by magusxxx · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ah, yes. Apple, the Romulans of Silicon Valley.

      --
      Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
    2. Re:Apple plays it safe by CapS · · Score: 1

      Apple got burned when they launched Apple Music by not paying royalties to artists during free trials. They quickly changed their policy, but got quite a lot of flack for it.

      I think this is less of them being clever than them just not wanting to touch this with a ten foot pole.

  9. Should be what it was worth when first published by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    If I work for an employer, I get what they have agreed to pay me. Therefore if I write a song, my income from it should be what was the going rate at the time I wrote it - adjusted for inflation of course. This of course should apply to copyright periods: what they were when the product was published.

  10. increase payouts to songwriters by 44%? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it really songwriters or you meant copyright owners?

  11. Apple can have the praise if by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple can have the praise if they announce they will pay the higher royalties regardless if the ruling is overturned. Otherwise all they are doing is skipping the legal fees and letting the other companies fight on their behalf.

  12. Re:Should be what it was worth when first publishe by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    But the song writers are not employees of Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, etc. The songs were also not written on contract to the streaming services. The song writers OWN the songs for the most part. There is partial ownership by music publishers but still zero ownership by the streaming services.

  13. I want to make my PII a song by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I want to make my PII a song, and charge a royalty for anyone who uses it, copies it, transfers it, sells it, etc. Where is my million dollars a song? Why does it only apply to rich companies?

    Just kidding, we all know why. But know why they say 44% increase? Because stinging over a half penny sounds bad.

  14. teamed up? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Joint statement?

    Sounds like market distorting to collusion to me! Throw the book at them!

  15. History ? by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Probably because back when the law was passed, "making music" was considered to be the act of writing the sheets, and the act of playing was merely considered as a performance of the music (think band playing in a corner of the pub/saloon/whatever. Or the musician(s) playing while a silent film is running - mostly equivalent to a movie playing an audio track).

    The considered "performing" mostly the same way as an automatic piano playing a roll, or the way we nowadays consider an MP3 player reproducing a sound file.

    Eventually, once recording and reproducing performance became common, a "specific performance" became a thing and artists became something important.
    But by then, the commercial entities managed to wrestle law into their advantages.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]