Slashdot Log In
RIAA Wants Songwriter Royalty Lowered
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:05 PM
from the more-for-meeeeee dept.
from the more-for-meeeeee dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Lest there be anyone left who believes the RIAA's propaganda that its litigation campaign is intended to benefit the 'creators' of the music, Hollywood Reporter reports that the RIAA is asking the Copyright Royalty Board to lower songwriter royalties on song file downloads, from the present rate of 9 cents per song — about 13% of the wholesale price — down to 8% of wholesale. Meanwhile, the big digital music companies, such as Apple, want the royalty rate lowered even more, to something like 4% of wholesale. So any representations by any of these companies that they are concerned for the 'creators' of the music must henceforth be taken with a boxcar-load of salt."
Related Stories
[+]
RIAA Denies Hypocrisy in Royalties Dustup 1 comment
Hairless ape writes "The RIAA is reacting to a story pointing out the group's hypocrisy in its attempts to have songwriter royalties lowered. The issue stems from attempts to get webcasters to pay fixed royalty rates. 'In short, the contention was that the RIAA wanted to pay a percentage of its revenue to songwriters as its profits have fallen, but pushed for a fixed per-stream when it came to earning money from webcasters.' The RIAA says that's not so, and that SoundExchange offered a similar model to webcasters. Either way, the rates sought by the two groups would have bankrupted many webcasters. 'Now you know; it wasn't about hypocrisy, but one of the seven deadly sins may still have been involved.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You're assuming... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You're assuming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You're assuming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the RIAA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why the RIAA? (Score:5, Interesting)
I heard it was too complicated to do it that way. Maybe with modern computers it may be easier. It used to be that radio-stations etc. would simply[1] keep a list of each song they played and periodically handed that list over to the RIAA, who applied a set even percentage and collected corresponding fees to be distributed. It worked well for several decades. In fact, I think that patents should follow a similar technique so that you don't get slammed with surprise royalties.
[1] With random auditing.
Re:Why the RIAA? (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't even a matter of paying the artists at all.
This is a matter of the NMPA (an industry association of publishing companies representing composing artists), and the RIAA (an industry association of record labels representing performing artists) squabbling over which middle man ought to get a bigger cut of online sales.
How much either of them passes on to the artists they supposedly represent is a separate issue.
And, meanwhile, the DiMA (an industry association of online music sellers) is chiming in to suggest that they both keep their prices low to speed growth in online sales while CD sales tank.
Re:Why the RIAA? (Score:5, Informative)
The RIAA is a trade group, and it wouldn't surprise me if they had some kind of power/influence written into all the contracts they administer to control where royalties are paid.
They do have some goals [wikipedia.org], which are not *all* related to litigation.
So you see, they do lots of things besides sue their customers.
Wither Lars? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wither Lars? (Score:5, Insightful)
On second thoughts, perhaps we should
Is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lest anyone be at all surprised, remember that RIAA stands for the Recording Industry Association of America. It represents the record companies, and that's all it represents. If these companies could find some legal way to hold a gun to a songwriter's or musician's head and take their work at gunpoint, they'd do it.
I'm not going to insist that digital downloads are the future and that all artists should follow Radiohead's lead, but any artists who care at all about their future had damn well better examine every single alternative when figuring out how to produce and distribute their music. Things are changing, and you can be sure that the record companies are going to be looking out for their best interests. Artists had better do the same, or they're going to get screwed.
LAWL (Score:5, Insightful)
Royalty or Loyalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA - The red herring? (Score:5, Interesting)
If so, then they are doing an admirable job of inspiring people to direct ire and hared towards the constructed organisation rather than to the parent companies.
It isn't often that I see people complaining about Sony or BMG (Comparatively speaking).
It always seems to come down to that nasty RIAA.
Well done indeed.
Seen same with H1B issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Record Companies Victimized (Score:5, Funny)
Now the record companies, who created the internet and invented downloading music and streaming audio, have seen their take of the pie stay the same, whilst freeloading music creators are actually making more.
I shall write to Orrin Hatch about this...
RIAA bad, Apple... (Score:5, Funny)
Going the Way of Nine Inch Nails? (Score:5, Informative)
"Steal it. Steal away. Steal, steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing," Reznor, who has been dubbed the Ralph Nader of the music industry, said.
Steal NIN music too? He steals he says. Read that article. Interesting.
8/13 = 62% (Score:5, Insightful)
So everyone else's cut is going up, even though the songwriter's costs and work are the same. But the rest of the "value" chain to the consumer (which now is composed mostly of the consumer, recommending and trying to share the content) is drastically reduced in cost and increased in availability of inventory (which was typically paid off according to plan many years ago).
An Explanation of The Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
For This Reason, New Media Players (Apple, Yahoo, Napster, etc) argue that the "mechanical royalty for copyright" should be lowered significantly on digital downloads (specifically, to 4%).
RIAA etc argue the fee should be dropped only slightly (specifically, only to 8%).
RIAA are arguing to maintain profits for their (arguably, exceedingly dinosaur-like) "distribution model".
The New Media crew are arguing the way of sanity and intelligence. (ie trying to push the 'downloads are effectively performances, because there's no way to differentiate' argument)
Every time you hear something new from the RIAA it boils down to "someone needs to shovel more money into our bank accounts, without any additional effort or contribution on our part. Our business model dictates an infinitely increasing profit margin, for infinitely decreasing effort, ad-infinitum."
And the same can be said of those ISPs who intend to violate the concept of "net-neutrality". ("someone's making money , and the bits cross our network. Ignore the fact we already billed someone for those bits, I want to directly bill BOTH the producer AND the consumer of those bits, even though they have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with me").
That's not a business-model, that's a fantasy.
Re:Yet another reason for artists to go it alone (Score:5, Informative)
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry.
Reducing costs is good for the Industry.
Re:Yet another reason for artists to go it alone (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, just not the artist you thought. They are really on the side of the con artists (I.E. the corp backers).
Re:Yet another reason for artists to go it alone (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust me: the industry can find a thousand people to write crap like this [azlyrics.com]:
Oh baby, baby
Oh baby, baby
How was I supposed to know
That something wasn't right here
Oh baby baby
For the record, one of my all time fav artists does this. Ayria [ayria.com]. She's cute, too!
What?! Should we try Communism ONE MORE TIME because THIS TIME we'll "do it right"? Ha. Come on.
Re:Yet another reason for artists to go it alone (Score:5, Informative)
You should be careful about such comments. One would think you were talking about "communism" the economic model since you are comparing it to capitalism, instead of "communism" the political ideology. This is important because "communism" the political ideology generally tries to apply extreme "socialism" as economic policy and has basically nothing to do with "communism" the economic model aside from the political parties that misleadingly stole the name. This is also important because "communism" the economic model is alive and well for those who apply it to small communist cell sizes. The most common example of this would be the family unit, which comprises a communist cell by buying and selling goods and services collectively (although these cell sizes are shrinking in the US). Other applications of communism that have stood the test of time are monasteries, co-op housing, co-op stores, credit unions, municipalities, etc.
Most Americans seem to have some messed up ideas about communism and socialism, both as political ideologies and as economic models. For example, public schools are an example of socialism, although those schools seem to have failed to educate their students as to that fact. Most people with an even cursory education in economics, however, will tell you that communism, socialism, and capitalism are all present in every economy in the world and what usually leads to disaster is when an economy becomes extremist and failing to balance these aspects. Extreme capitalism is just as unstable and disastrous as extreme socialism or extreme communism... that is the lesson we all should have learned from history.
Re:Yet another reason for artists to go it alone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What if the royalty was negative? (Score:5, Informative)
ROFL, oh but THEY DO!!!! the traditional RIAA contract has the artist paying for all the costs out of their royalties. essentially companys RIAA represent take an artist onboard and fund the album, making the artist pay it all out of their royalties at an inflated price as well as taking their cut of the profits, so if an artist is very lucky they might walk away not owing them money... studio's are a pit of snakes, make no mistake.