ASCAP Says Apple Should Pay For 30-sec. Song Samples 463
Posted
by
kdawson
from the thicket-of-rights dept.
from the thicket-of-rights dept.
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..."
Somebody please (Score:5, Interesting)
Killing A Revenue Stream (Score:5, Interesting)
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'm so fucking tired ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Somebody please (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:3, Interesting)
O RLY? Do you realize how many individual artists ASCAP represents?
I think you should keep "represents" in quotes; most of the artists signed up on ASCAP never see a dime, thanks to the idiotic policy of only paying based on radio airplay. Yep, that's right - places that wouldn't be caught dead playing the latest teen bubblegum are paying "license fees" that end up in the hands of those artists.
Well, the money does go one other place - the pockets of ASCAP executives. Wonder where the iTunes money will go?
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [amazon.com] 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!
ah wait a sec - this is ASCAP! (Score:3, Interesting)
WTF, not RIAA this time, instead it's ASCAP> WTF are they smoking?! Why does everyone have to have their hands out? Hey when some twits ringtone goes off are you going to find a way to charge for that "performance" too?! Man at some point these "content" folks are just going to get right out of control! Oh wait..... too late!
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't license the music when you put it in the movie. You license the music for each copy, and each broadcast you make. Stupid and time-consuming, yes. That's why it's ASCAP and BMI and not individual artists going for royalties. Radio and TV commercials pay individual for every broadcast of every song, whether that song is in a movie or in a TV commercial. There's some pretty fancy software that keeps track of this for them.
It's so convoluted that you can't even LEGALLY include popular music in a wedding video, because they don't provide any way to license the music for a measly 5-10 copies of the video.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:3, Interesting)
They could make it sting harder than that. Just stop offering sound samples for all ASCAP music.
I call distinction without a difference (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:2, Interesting)
This is what killed radio. I previously used radio as a way to find out about new music so I could figure out what I'd like to buy. The same with the old (long ago) MTV and VH1. Then the copyright holders started charging for that. The free advertising ended, and this probably precipitated the drop in music sales that the industry credits to piracy. I simply stopped buying because I didn't know what to buy anymore. The airwaves, instead of advertising this stuff, were instead full of DJs talking.
Now, I can sample stuff online before I buy. Combine that with a recommendation engine, and I've bought more music online (Amazon Marketplace and Amazon downloads) in the past few years than ever before.
If they take away that free advertising, I'll be back to where I was several years ago, unable to figure out what I'd like to have. I'm definitely not going back to the days of getting suckered into buying one-hit wonders because I can't sample them. So I guess music sales get to drop again.
Re:Killing A Revenue Stream (Score:2, Interesting)
Could it be exactly what they want ? Most major labels are not only publishers but also distributors. They might be trying to kill Apple before they get big enough as distributors to start publishing.
Go after the only company saving your industry? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why the music industry is dieing. Instead of doing fair, rational and sane business... they eat themselves alive as they search for every penny.
You know, really good stores... treat their customers well. They toss in free things, they treat the customer like a fair person.
Apple is the saving grace of the entire music industry. Its not just itunes, its iPods, iphones, and macs themselves!
The RIAA is going to after the one entity that is trying to bring progress to a dead industry built on greed, corruption and casting couch rape sessions?
Attn: RIAA. Free previews, are free advertisements and the RIAA are a bunch of stupid assholes.
Itunes does not need the RIAA. In fact, itunes can completely replace the RIAA all together. Why have record labels at all? Itunes could be your record label. Sell directly to consumers just like iphone Apps.
Who really needs you any more RIAA? No one. SO BE NICE, and enjoy what you have now, rather than squeeze yourself out of existence by your own greed.
Frankly... go ahead and do it, fuck yourself to oblivion. We'll just buy stuff from the itunes/disney label which will feature all of the artists you lost.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:3, Interesting)
Wishful thinking (Score:2, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be nice if we could get the entire country or even better world to not buy any music for a few days in protest of the RIAA / ASCAP / Record Labels BS NAZI tactics? Any other business that pulled this BS would be out of business in a second. Imagine walking into a car showroom and them saying "Ok, that'll be $20 to take a testdrive" or a clothing store to say "That'll be $2 to try that on"?
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:3, Interesting)
I was also amazed that my iPhone doesn't act like a flash drive when you hook it up with a USB cable. What kind of control freak company made this thing? Oh wait... never mind. Even jailbreaking it doesn't really fix this issue.
Re:Killing A Revenue Stream (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure Apple would collect these figures, so they would have a good idea how effective the preview is in clinching a sale.
Re:Audit the current system first? (Score:3, Interesting)
When he says "a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money" does he mean like the 1 billion songs that iTunes has sold? Because at 9.1 cents per song, that comes out to $91,000,000... which is exactly a lot of money.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:3, Interesting)
"I've never been in favor of either of them. ASCAP are a bunch of assholes, as big or bigger than the RIAA. ASCAP does not help the artists."
I've talked to some folks who've made a couple of hundred bucks a month from radio airplay. These weren't big-name artists. If you're of a certain income, you might scoff at a measly couple of hundred bucks a month -- but for a struggling songwriter (and most are), it can pay for groceries or the rent. For the lesser-known songwriters and lyricists, it's not uncommon to make more money in performance royalties than you make in mechanical royalties paid by the label.
"They take a tax out of every venue on the assumption that there might be some music played by some artist that they represent."
Sorta. If you want to play music licensed through ASCAP or BMI then you purchase a license. It's not mandatory. If you have, say, a bar or club and you don't thik you'll get any financial gain out of playing music at your establishment, then you can skip the license.
"And the redistribution works like with the RIAA... the top acts get a ton of cash, the rest get fuck-all. After ASCAP takes their fees, of course."
You're correct that fees are distributed roughly in proportion to popularity. The song and lyric writing biz is a bit unfair this way; popularity often doesn't scale to talent. They used to measure only by radio airplay sampling, but in recent years they've made it more equitable, by getting playlists from satellite and Internet radio stations, for instance -- which play a lot more eclectic and lesser-known music.
"ASCAP is just as much of a cancer on 90% of artists and the public as the RIAA is."
If you're a songwriter or lyricist, there are tons of good reasons to join ASCAP/BMI, and no reasons not to. There's a one-time $25 fee to apply, but if you don't think that you'll be able to collect $25 in performance royalties during your career, perhaps you're in the wrong business!
The RIAA certainly doesn't care about you; they look after the record labels and they certainly don't have your interests in mind. They wouldn't even offer mechanicals if they weren't legally obligated to. By contrast, ASCAP has your back. They're run by and for artists. If you get minor airplay only on obscure XM stations, can you expect to get as big a check as the guy who wrote Beyonce's latest hit? No, but this isn't an ASCAP issue. ASCAP is just there to be an advocacy organization for artists; they're not obligated to pay each member equally.
Remember, ASCAP's primary function is to collect and redistribute royalties. Their operating costs are a small, small portion of the fees they collect and pass through. The RIAA is a trade organization for the record labels the record labels pay them, not the other way around.
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
FWIW (Score:2, Interesting)
Unlike what seems like everyone who has posted a comment on this story thus far, I am a member of ASCAP. In fact, I'm a member both as an individual artist, and as a publisher (my publishing company represents exactly one artist - me). ASCAP stands for "American Society of Composers, Artists, and Producers". It charges no membership fees, but you must have at least one published song to be eligible for membership. The directors are elected from within the membership's ranks.
The problem with ASCAP is that its executives all have intimate ties to the legacy recording industry, and that they're pretty much totally unresponsive to input from those of us who don't have such ties. In fact, as far as I can tell, there is no useful mechanism for ordinary members, like me, to affect ASCAP policymaking in any way, shape, or form. Our only power is to vote the bastards out of office - and the problem there is that, as with many other nominally non-profit organizations (I know that seems counterintuitive, but, in fact, ASCAP is chartered as a non-profit organization, which supports itself by charging its members a modest fee for collecting performance royalties on their behalf - a royalty on a royalty, if you will - and, if you are owed no royalties, you pay no fees), elections are essentially popularity contests. "Oh, I recognize that name!" is about as deeply as most ASCAP members think about who they vote for. So the board of directors is mostly dominated by producers, rather than songwriters, and the majority of them are themselves relics of a bygone era, who are, for the most part, digital dimwits, who think of the Internet as the vacuum cleaner that's sucking up all the income from the CDs that aren't selling any more.
The thing is that, from a songwriter's perspective, what ASCAP is chartered to do is essential to making a living. Not all successful songwriters are members of touring bands. Many of us aren't even (or are barely even) recording artists. Instead, there is a substantial population of members who write songs for other people to record, or write soundtrack music (i.e. - not the hits the TV studios license as theme songs, or background music, but the incidental music that sets the mood, or heightens the tension - music that most viewers don't consciously notice, because that's not its function, but that they would definitely miss, if it wasn't there), or commercial jingles, or even music for videogames. Those members of ASCAP need licensing income in order to pay the mortgage and buy groceries. Few of them are millionaires.
So, again, what ASCAP does (or, at least, what it's supposed to do) is not inherently evil. The problem is that its executive ranks are filled with unimaginitive dinosaurs. They're not focused on PR, or on pumping up members' sales numbers, because that's not their charter. Their charter is simple and straightforward: to see that their members get paid every time their recordings are performed in public. That those executives are shortsighted enough to try to squeeze Apple (or any other company) for royalties on 30-second samples does not invalidate the legitimacy of writers needing to get paid for their work, just as coders get paid for theirs. The difference is that coders tend to do "works for hire", so their employers own the code they write, whereas almost all ASCAP members are self-employed. If we don't get royalties, we starve.
Finally, note that Apple is making a pile of money on iTunes. Steve Jobs is not a selfless hero. He's a businessman who has developed a distribution system for music that insures that songwriters receive mechanical royalties (which is where that 9.1 cents comes in) on the sale of individual songs. Mechanical royalties are different from performance royalties. They are paid to songwriters when songs they have written are first sold to individual buyers - essentially, a one-time payment to the writer(s) on each song you, as consumers, purchase, whether in CD format, or as a digital download. ASCAP has nothing to do with colle