ASCAP Says Apple Should Pay For 30-sec. Song Samples 463
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..."
So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Were I Apple, I'd drop people who charged for it.
iTunes has gotten to a saturation point with so many artists that the ones who demand payment would just have to be the ones who afford to lose out on that market. iTunes doesn't *need* them, anymore, and neither does Amazon.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't hurt Apple that much, if people still use their store and iTunes library to keep track of everything, to assure lock-in.
Maybe Apple can be kind and replace the "play 30 sec sample" link with a BitTorrent link, for those that choose not to let apple provide the sample for free.
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:ah wait a sec - this is ASCAP! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's business. Men in suits sit around quoting business concepts at each other until they convince themselves they have a good idea.
They're executives, the way they work is by outsourcing their specialized thinking to others while they manage. I'm sure they honestly don't know how stupid they look. They read a report that mentions in passing the 30-second preview, they reel and can't understand why they're giving away content for free. They call in the secretary and set up a meeting with their iTunes lead. The poor guy tries to explain how obviously it's of enormous benefit to offer a preview. The MBA hears some engineer admitting that he's following his personal opinion in a matter of possibly huge importance to the company. The MBA looks for a real report done by Research with real numbers and tables and projections that confirms the engineer's opinion-- and there are none. He assigns a team in Research to investigate the matter and recommend any disciplinary action against the engineer. Research consults Legal, they say they have no contract with iTunes for getting paid for their content when it's in a 30 second sample. They contact the MBA, give him a preliminary report that confirms his suspicions. He sets up a meeting with Apple to discuss future payment. MBA gets laughed out, MBA lobbies congress.
Re:ah wait a sec - this is ASCAP! (Score:5, Funny)
I read slashdot to *escape* the workplace, not relive it.
*sigh*
It's not business (Score:5, Insightful)
It IS greed. There are successful businesses, and then there are businesses who care about naught but lining their and their shareholders' pockets with money. Time, time, time, and time again, history has shown that you can run a business that people like and make money, or you can be a greedy monster and make money. It works for some time, but will those businesses be around in 100 years? If you go around the world and look at some of the companies that HAVE been around for over a century (a lot of food companies have), you'll find that the workers there are typically treated well and are very happy.
It's the same as the old king analogy. As a king, you can rule with kindness or you can rule by fear. By kindness and you can have everything you want (and everything your prosperous country can produce) and will be remembered forever. By fear and you can have everything (only what your pitiful starving country can give you) and will be forgotten over the centuries. For some reason, a lot of leaders tend to choose the latter.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was also amazed that my iPhone doesn't act li
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
If Apple suddenly dropped them, people aren't going to replace iTunes, their going to replace the musician. People are way to lazy to find another source for their music - especially when there are another 200 manufactured bands out there that sound exactly the same.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
iTunes doesn't *need* them, anymore, and neither does Amazon.
O RLY? Do you realize how many individual artists ASCAP represents?
ASCAP is a membership association of more than 360,000 U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers of every kind of music. Through agreements with affiliated international societies, ASCAP also represents hundreds of thousands of music creators worldwide.
ASCAP is home to the greatest names in American music, past and present - from Duke Ellington to Dave Matthews, from George Gershwin to Stevie Wonder, from Leonard Bernstein to Beyonce, from Marc Anthony to Alan Jackson, from Henry Mancini to Howard Shore - as well as many thousands of writers in the earlier stages of their careers.
ASCAP represents every kind of music. ASCAP's repertory includes pop, rock, alternative, country, R&B, rap, hip-hop, Latin, film and television music, folk, roots and blues, jazz, gospel, Christian, new age, theater and cabaret, dance, electronic, symphonic, concert, as well as many others - the entire musical spectrum.
The majority of mainstream artists (or their publishers) are members of ASCAP, iTunes and Amazon are all about catering to mainstream culture.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Whaaat? 360,000 composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers in the US ALONE.
What does that mean? That there are perhaps MILLIONS of such people world wide?
I don't know about anyone else, but when there are that many "artists" clamouring for money, and I'm seeing so much derivative, boring crappy "art" being produced by them, I'm thinking they can kiss my pink shiny arse.
I mean, it's not as if music makes the world go round. I'm sure we can lose a few of these people and not notice any difference.
Re: (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?
I don't see the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes when someone is hellbent on causing their own self-destruction, and they want your help, you should give it to them! So if ASCAP wants a law that requires anyone playing a 30-second sample of a song to pay a fee, then let them have it! All the law will do is hurt their sales, which is exactly what they deserve!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, if they don't want people to be able to do that as I programmer I would be happy to comply, it's only going to hurt them. I'm just saying that dropping support for ASCAP-related music in iTunes would drastically hurt the sales in iTunes (which would hurt both Apple and the music biz). Since it's affecting Apple's bottom line I doubt they're willing to comply, which is probably why ASCAP hasn't been successful at negotiating this ridiculous fee.
I mean, it's fine if they want to charge people for p
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
> But it's pretty ridiculous to try to add online music sales as one definition of "performing", because it's just not.
Agreed. I will pay performance fees if and only if the 30 second sample is an actual live performance at that moment just for me to sample the tune.
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Presumably, if I had songs on iTunes, then yes, I'd get some fraction of a cent or something. ASCAP and BMI don't collect for everybody. You're thinking of Sound Exchange. ASCAP collects only for its members, as do BMI and SESAC. For any composers or publishers who aren't a member of one of those three performing rights societies (or any of the other similar groups in other countries), the person making the recording or airing it or whatever generally has to track down the composer and publisher through some other means.
The net effect of this sort of thing, if passed, would probably end up being (at most) a fraction of a cent per play of such a snippet, which translates to almost nothing for all but the biggest artists, but if it ends up causing previews to be less accessible, would translate to a huge loss for all but the biggest artists (who probably wouldn't see much difference). Thus, I'd expect the biggest artists to want these laws and everybody else to think there's not enough crack in the world. :-)
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).
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
No, simply pass along the charge. "You want to check whether this is the right song before you purchase? Sorry that will be 10c on this song". Let's see how sales go, shall we?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They could make it sting harder than that. Just stop offering sound samples for all ASCAP music.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
EXACTLY.
Pop up a little text box that says this vendor will not
allow you to listen to a preview.
Problem solved. Buyers will run away from those artists as fast as they can.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Why drop the people? Just continue to carry the songs with no samples. A simple message "We're sorry but this artist refuses to let us serve you with a sample of the song before you purchase" should suffice.
They'll get back in line in no time when the sales plummet.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like it's time for an anti-trust investigation!
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but there have been numerous reports in recent months of digital sales rising as the sales of CDs fall. I think Apple's response should be to stop providing free 30 second commercials for the songs they sell, and charge copyright holders for this advertising, just as television, radio and print media charge for ads.
If individual rights holders do not wish to pay for this advertising, they can take the chance that potential buyers will find out about their offerings via other methods, like word of mouth, or the payola-sponsored airplay they get on Clear Channel stations.
This is very similar to Rupert Murdoch wanting to charge Google for helping readers (and potential targets for their ads) to find the stories they publish. Same solution - offer to continue indexing their site for a nominal fee. If they don't like those terms, cut 'em off for six months and see how they feel about it then (if they're still around).
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:5, Insightful)
See that's where ASCAP won the battle but lost the war a few years back. Anything Hollywood publishes TODAY, they will secure full distribution rights to before releasing.. movie, DVD, rentals, youtube... etc. After ASCAP shenanigans with things like "Freaks and Geeks" holding up DVD distribution because the studio "didn't pay for that", studios won't even add your song without the blanket contract in place so that the music rights tag along with all their other distribution rights. Music publishers went thru the same thing back the Napster days.... they won't publish an album on CD unless the songwriter and artist grant all the various digital rights as well. Publishing execs nailed these guys down in the last few years after being repeatedly sued and now the money tree is shut down while Apple is neatly flying high in the aftermath. ASCAP overreached, and was inflexible and difficult to deal with... they got shut down by careful paperwork. Now they want Congress to step in and create another new "royalty" because they're not getting a good enough deal on the ones they already signed.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah it is pretty stupid to make Apple, Amazon, or other e-tailers pay for the 30 second samples used to promote songs. Oftentimes I have looked at an artist and thought, "I have no idea who this is," but once I heard the 30-second sample I recognized the song and bought the CD. What RIAA is basically doing is trying to block customers from discovering music which will ultimately hurt sales.
As for the music contained in shows and movies, RIAA already collects a piece of every DVD sale or VHS sale or TV rerun. It makes sense they'd want to collect a few pennies off the internet sale too. So I don't have a problem with it.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Informative)
FYI, this has nothing to do with the RIAA. This is ASCAP. The term "RIAA" doesn't even appear in TFA.
I call distinction without a difference (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
... Those acts would likely be paid both sync and performance fees [for tv and film]. But the person who writes the little-known background music heard during a fight scene may not see any sync money. That's because traditionally, composers of this kind of production music gave away sync rights in the hope they would make money from performance fees.
"This is really a fight about the future," [president and CEO of the NMPA] Israelite said. "As more and more people watch TV or movies over an Internet line as opposed to cable or broadcast signal, then we're going to lose the income of the performance. For people who do production and background music, that's how they make their living."
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to the public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
Life-Line by Robert A. Heinlein, 1939
ASCAP & BMI represent artists, not labels (Score:4, Informative)
As a performing artist, I know all too well how ASCAP and BMI work. They are actually artist organizations (they don't represent the labels) that pay the artist directly for "performances" of their music. Any public performance of an ASCAP or BMI artist's music is supposed to be supplemented by payment, usually in the form of a contract between the venue and ASCAP/BMI. The money the venue pays to the organization goes into a pot - and then this money is distributed to the artists. Nice idea, in theory. The problem begins when one looks at how these organizations pay the artists. It is almost entirely based upon radio airplay, so the system doesn't work particularly well except for the big players in the game.
ASCAP is well-known in cities for cracking-down on places like coffee houses that have live music - they send in what are essentially thugs to scare the venue into paying what works out to be "protection money" to keep ASCAP from suing them in the event someone plays an ASCAP-artist song during an open mic or live music event. Rather than trying to come off on a more positive marketing angle of trying to help out the music business and the artist, which ASCAP could easily create a pretty compelling argument for, they instead use strongarm legal language and intimidation. I know many coffee houses who simply won't allow live music due to a scary visit from ASCAP or BMI thugs.
Much like the RIAA, these "artist" companies, due to their plainly nasty way of dealing with their clients and the public, are simply in the business of making money off other people's work. This is why I am not a member of any of these organizations and work hard to support venues who don't cave-in to the pressures these organizations place on them. Original live music, owned by the performer - that cannot be touched by these cads.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
This is almost, but not quite, true. Its the "not quite" that is bothersome, since ASCAP will try to leverage money out of you WHETHER OR WEATHER NOT you actually plan on playing ASCAP music, on the off chance that you might accidentally do so.
Re:So essentially they want people to pay (Score:4, Informative)
It does change that fact. You are aware that the distribution volume impacts the royalties paid, right? The 'pound of flesh' is not exactly a pound just because song are listed in the credits... that pound is a variable amount depending on sales volume of tickets.
And you are also aware that as distribution on the "magic internet" increases, traditional distribution will decline? And thus the content distributors will pay less in royalties?
And perhaps you're also unaware that the movie theaters (the 3rd-party distributor) pay the ASCAP royalty fees indirectly as part of their payment to the movie studio, which is volume-based?
Seriously, you need to brush up on your knowledge of how the industry works, and drop the condescension ("magic internet"? gimme a break) when making claims that simply don't stand up to how things actually work.
Somebody please (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Somebody please (Score:5, Insightful)
No need to. They're digging it on their own.
Re:Somebody please (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, duh: They don't want you paying for an unknown artist. They want you paying for their over-hyped sensation-of-the-week.
Because being able to create and throw away those sensations-of-the-week is what keeps the record companies in business: It's their advertising, their handling, and their contacts that make that possible. If you start buying artists you've never heard of because you like their music their entire business model goes out the window.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why you go make it a law that everyone has to be paid. Then the unknowns have to take the money, even if it hurts them.
Outrage (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Outrage (Score:5, Funny)
Man, this makes SOOOOOOOO angry.
Saxons Of Otherwise Ordinary Occupations Originate Over On Ontario is angry about this? I hear it's rare to make them mad...
Congress Laws - new Business model? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure if I presented a thesis saying that my new form of business model required passing laws in Congress requiring people to give me money at the mere mention of my product, I'd be laughed out of school.
And yet, this seems to be turning into a reality?
Maybe what we need isn't just a government that has its hands off of business, we need businesses to keep their hands off the government too.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So for right now, it's far from reality.
Re:Congress Laws - new Business model? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still puzzled as to why it isn't universally acknowledged that corporate political campaign donations are the purest form of bribery.
They're really trying (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They're really trying (Score:5, Insightful)
They really want to shoot themselves in the foot, don't they?
They don't have feet, they're an entity... what they need is to be sucker-punched in their Accounting department and then kicked repeatedly in the Legal until they promise to stop being a dick.
Re: (Score:2)
Accounting is wrong as is Legal. These people do what the upper exec want them to do.
The Upper execs should be fired.
Re:They're really trying (Score:5, Funny)
Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Amendment XXVIII - Strike the following: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Replace with: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Times not to exceed 14 years to Authors, or 25 years for Inventors, the limited Privilege to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
The actual time limits can be debated, but they need to be set in the constitution, not left to a congress that can be bribed with corporate donations.
Re:Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constituti (Score:5, Insightful)
P.S.
I should probably explain: I think "Right" needs to be changed to "Privilege" for the simple reason that rights are timeless. They are an innate quality of being human and never expire. Therefore a limited-term copyright is not a right, but merely a privilege extended by the ruling government.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constituti (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
(1) You don't need Congress to amend the Constitution. The States can propose amendments. (2) It's not that hard to get a majority to recommend an amendment. You just need to get in power 51 senators and 51% of the House to pass the bill. Easy.
Re: (Score:2)
Oops. That's 67 Senators and 66.7% of the House. Still not that hard.
Re:Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constituti (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the problem is this... who is it that can add an amendment to the constitution? Damn, it's the same congress that can be bribed with corporate donations...
Congress is made of men. (I'm speaking English here, let me run with it.) If they are not doing the will of the people, the people are not using enough boxes.
Re:Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constituti (Score:2)
Good luck. The first hurdle in creating an amendment to the Constitution is that it has to be passed by a 2/3 majority of Congress. If the **AA's can get over %50 to pass the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, then they can easily get over %33 to stall an amendment.
Re: (Score:2)
The actual time limits can be debated, but they need to be set in the constitution, not left to a congress that can be bribed with corporate donations.
And what body would you propose should do the setting in the constitution?
Re:Enough is enough - Time to amend the Constituti (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree its an issue, but something as trivial as copyrights should not be part of the very foundation of our country. Its not THAT critical.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>something as trivial as copyrights should not be part of the very foundation of our country
What?!?!? Copyrights already ARE part of the Constitution dimwit. Where the hell do you think the phrase "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" came from???
Re: (Score:2)
UM, do you really want congress to set it in stone? because is could end up being 1000 years.
And congress is lied to bu corporation, and that ahs a much bigger influence the donations.
They get in front of congress and tell them theya re loosing sales, when they aren't, talk about the cost of downloading with 'adjusted' figures, and then lie about their legal tactics.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>UM, do you really want congress to set it in stone? because it could end up being 1000 years.
I doubt that. There'd be a general outcry by people like us, and the amendment would never get past the state legislatures. I trust that Congress would not be so stupid as to pick any number higher than the original author's lifespan (i.e. 100), for fear of pissing-off the voters and losing the next election.
Dig upan Old Meme (Score:2)
The clue-by-four meme died sometime in the late '90s. Methinks it's time to dust it off and start applying it to some heads.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I quite like referring to it as arranging a meeting with "the board of education"
ooo (Score:2)
if it were not for the possibility that they'll just buy a few more congress critters and subsidize themselves I'd say we let the industry go ahead and commit ritual suicide and finally be done with the RIAA and friends once and for all.
Paying Twice (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
ASCAP needs a slap upside the head. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be interesting if Apple did a test where they removed samples from say from the top 1000 songs, then provided 30 second samples for say 50 and calculated how much the 30 second sample actually generated in sales revenue.
The samples on iTunes allow people to figure out if they want to legally buy a song that actually generates revenue for the artists. If I can't sample what I'm deciding to buy, chances are I'd most likely go straight to limewire and get it that way, because these songs are non refundable.
All ASCAP seem to be doing here is encouraging more piracy, most people are generally happy to pay for media if its easy to obtain and its not a difficult process that you have to jump through endless micro payments, confusing license agreements and rights managment that is unreliable. iTunes is making it easy for artists to make revenue off the internet but that is just not enough it seems for those greedy bastards.
So.... (Score:2)
Audit the current system first? (Score:5, Funny)
"We make 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money," said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters' Guild of America. "Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I'm not kidding.
Who in the hell has Rick's other 7.1 cents?
Re:Audit the current system first? (Score:5, Funny)
Who in the hell has Rick's other 7.1 cents?
Man, Rick got rolled.
Re:Audit the current system first? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's pretend his story is true, and that he got less than 9.1 cents for some ridiculous-but-conceivable reason. In other words, take that inconsistency off the table.
If he's receiving a check for two cents, nobody is buying his fucking music. Why is it that he seems to believe he should be making "a bunch of money?" Would this horrible insult to his right to be rich for no reason be somehow mitigated if he had received a check for 50 cents from his one sale instead?
Re: (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.
Isn't this an issue for the movie and TV companies (Score:2)
Make that triple-dip.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What amazes me is how many "groups" representing recording artists there are. It's ludicrous. First you've got to please RIAA, which claims it's doing it to protect the artists, then you've got the publishing companies that will nail your ass if you print any of the lyrics, then you've got ASCAP, which also represents the artists. No wonder the industry is sinking.
What's going to happen at the end of the day is that Apple and other online music services are going to make their own damned labels, woo over
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So the ASCAP enforcement of performance payment went into place to ens
The other Apple (Score:3, Informative)
What's going to happen at the end of the day is that Apple and other online music services are going to make their own damned labels
If Apple Inc. did that, the other Apple might complain [wikipedia.org].
ASCAP (Score:2)
Are the artists really for this? or is someone as ASCAP just being a douche?
Free preview (Score:5, Funny)
*yawn* (Score:2)
Idiots. This sort of nonsense is working out so well for RIAA i guess they want in on the ( sinking ) boat too. Next they will want a part of our tax dollars since most of us have ears and might listen to a non-licensed performance.
counterproductive: inures people to "infringement" (Score:4, Insightful)
These slippery slopes to vices happen all the time. I know lots of folks who would never/rarely drive drunk, but drive stoned all the time. Folks are so inured to breaking the marijuana laws (understandably) that they think nothing of driving stoned, but breaking alcohol laws still has some legitimacy behind it.
Ridiculous laws lead to disdain and apathy toward the legal system. You're just inuring consumers to the idea of "infringement" by making such ludicrous demands.
Re:counterproductive: inures people to "infringeme (Score:4, Insightful)
I hear you - I really do - but if marijuana were legal and regulated, but driving stoned were prohibited, I bet we'd have more stoners but fewer stoned drivers on the street. Make respectable laws and people will respect them.
Well ok then (Score:2)
I'm so fucking tired ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Tired of the re-definition of performance. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a performance if I ...
Play your CD
Hear your Song on the Radio
Look at your album jacket
It's a performance if:
You come to my house and play,
Hold a concert
Play on a street corner or a subway
Everyone in the chain of production needs to quit pretending that somehow, each time that CD is played, they have put in a personal appearance. // rant off
Performance as defined above is the method the bulk of working musicians actually make money. The RIAA just doesn't want to admit it.
Re:Tired of the re-definition of performance. (Score:4, Insightful)
And they got it wrong - back in the beginning of radio. Doesn't mean we shouldn't fix it.
It was only a performance when it was "live in studio". "live in studio" is just a really long mic cord :-)
But recordings? give me a break - if the musicians didn't have to show up - it's not a performance.
The radio industry caved to ASCAP and the RIAA : read about the whole payola scandal back in the dawn of radio sometime. They were passing money around in loops as bad as Enron. Stations holding up RIAA for money or they wouldn't play their new hit wonder - RIAA holding up the stations for money or they wouldn't get the hits when the got popular - who's the losers - Musicians and Listeners....
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Greedy fuckers (Score:2)
What the fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's how I see this conversation going.
ASCAP> Give us lots of money!
Apple> You're already getting lots of money.
ASCAP> We want *more* money!
Apple> No.
ASCAP> We *demand* more money!
Apple> No.
ASCAP> If you don't give us more money, we'll take our music off your service!
Apple> No you won't, and we both know it.
ASCAP> WAAAAH GIVE US MORE MONEY
C'mon. If they wanted the extra fees so bad, they'd take their music off. Obviously they don't - they just want the government to step in when their own demands for money fell flat.
Why don't they make their own music distributor? Oh, that's right, because that takes work, and they don't want to do work. They just want free money.
I feel so sorry for them.
Why Apple? (Score:2)
As evil as record labels are, they are certainly the responsible party for fulfilling their contracts with artists. Go to court and demand that they pay the same kind of penalties that they demand from file sharers. Let them go out of business or price iTunes downloads out of most teenager's budgets and independent musicians may have a chance.
It's for the techno artists.... (Score:2, Funny)
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: (Score:2)
6 months?
Welcome new guy.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm about to buy my first album in about five years when Them Crooked Vultures release their album. Other than that, I've so totally lost interest in the pure crapola that the record industry pumps out that I couldn't spend the money in ten years.
Re: (Score:2)
Hi, I'm Jaysyn & I've been RIAA free for 9 years now.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're confused about all of the music industry groups that try to get paid for music. ASCAP is pretty much the biggest organization for songwriters. Yes songwriters for the big labels, but also those for smaller labels as well.
Its not very exclusive. You can join for a one time fee of $25. http://www.ascap.com/about/howjoin.asp [ascap.com] Then you can hate yourself for the rest of your life ;)