Month: April 2014

Researchers Claim That Releasing YouTube Music Videos Reduces Album Sales | Hypebot

In 2009, Warner blocked videos on YouTube by not only their artists but by anybody using bits of their music. This period gave researchers a chunk of data to compare and after doing their statistical magic on all other causes, found that the “blackout had both statistically and economically significant positive effects on album sales, specifically the best-selling albums in a week.”

The paper is available for free:

“Online Music, Sales Displacement, and Internet Search: Evidence from YouTube”

The key point seems to be that for top-selling albums by artists with which listeners are already familiar, YouTube’s free listening acts as direct competition to sales of such albums. In fact, they seem to claim that not having videos on YouTube increased sales by “on average 10,000 units per week for top albums.”

READ THE FULL STORY AT HYPEBOT:
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2014/04/report-claims-that-releasing-youtube-music-videos-reduces-album-sales.html

by Trichordist Editor

YouTube’s Monopoly Effects and Keeping an Eye on Those Songwriters

And there’s even more to read here:
http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/beggars-reviewing-5050-streaming-split-with-artists/

Music Technology Policy

In case you didn’t believe there was a reason why YouTube executives were booed at this year’s MIDEM global music industry trade conference, you may find this reporting from the Music Tank meeting in London this week as reported by Complete Music Update:

Last night’s MusicTank debate…was…generally optimistic….And though the debate was technically initiated by Thom Yorke’s Spotify-bashing of last year, the DSPs were generally portrayed as good partners for artists and rights owners. With perhaps one exception – any DSP bashing last night was reserved for YouTube.

The Google-owned platform is an important partner for the music industry everyone agreed, but the music community’s relationship with the content giant – skewed by the firm’s opt-out rather than opt-in approach to dealing with rights owners – needs to change.

There has been a real swing against YouTube in the music community in the last year, with growing resentment…

View original post 1,287 more words

by Trichordist Editor

Amazon’s Streaming Contract Is “Entirely Unacceptable” | Digital Music News

Amazon is trying to bypass US Copyright law and define its own royalty rates

Section 115 of the US Copyright Act is the rate, set by the government, that defines the mechanical royalty rates. Most people know that the statutory mechanical royalty rate is currently 9.1 cents per download or physical “phonorecord” under 5 minutes (and then 1.75 cents per minute thereafter), but few know what the rate is per stream. That’s because the streaming rate is based upon the streaming service’s number of subscribers and users. More subscribers to the service equals higher mechanical royalty rates.

For the record, Spotify, Beats and the other streaming services all follow Section 115 of the US Copyright Act and follow the defined mechanical royalty rates.

READ THE FULL POST AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/04/10/amazons-streaming-contract-entirely-unacceptable

by trichordist

Billy Bragg and Beggars Group Rethink YouTube & Streaming… | MusicAlly

We wonder if this is the future of music and artist revenue streams?

While Wheeler was positive about subscription streaming services, he opened both barrels on YouTube. “If YouTube launches a subscription service and it eats Spotify and Rdio, you’ll look back at these times as great days,” he cautioned. “They want to eat all the other music services and our business. That’s their plan.” He said the record industry was “caught out” in the early days of YouTube and didn’t realise the video site would become so big, initially thinking it was just about licensing music for a video of “a cat on a skateboard and then it became the biggest music service in the world”.

Bragg backed him up by saying, “If you want to talk about artists getting angry about the use of their music, YouTube is the place we should be looking at.”

Wheeler concluded, “We got caught out and that needs addressing. Otherwise they will eat our dinner.”

READ THE FULL STORY AT MUSICALLY:
http://musically.com/2014/04/07/beggars-group-recalibrates-50-streaming-payment-to-artists-and-attacks-youtube/

RELATED:

Exclusive: ‘YouTube Music’ Is Launching This Summer… | Digital Music News

#SXSW REWIND : Venture Capitalist Admits Artists Can Not Make A Living On Streaming Royalties…

What YouTube Really Pays… Makes Spotify Look Good! #sxsw

by trichordist

Online Piracy Finally In the Crosshairs | William Buckley Jr. HuffPo

Written in 1998, with the intent of protecting both copyright holders and website owners, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, quickly became a devastating problem for copyright holders. Not coincidentally, barely a year later, in 1999, Shawn Fanning launched Napster, marking the beginning of online piracy and over a decade of artist abuse.

Now, fifteen years later, most pirate sites are still operating under the protection provided by the DMCA’s Safe Harbor; a loop-hole that has enabled pirate sites to thrive in a quasi-legal gray area. A safe harbor from which online pirates claim compliance by engaging in what is commonly referred to as whack-a-mole, a process where infringing sites comply with take down notices by taking down the infringing content only to have the same content reposted almost immediately from another source.

The proposed change referred to as Stay Down strives to eliminate the safe harbor loop-hole. Copyright holders and administrators, while still responsible for policing their work, are only responsible for notifying a website operator one time. Once that is accomplished, the hosting site is now responsible for blocking the infringing content. A process that can be managed by software programs. If a service provider fails to comply they are in violation of the law.

READ THE FULL STORY AT HUFFPO:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-buckley-jr/online-piracy-finally-in-_b_5086820.html

by trichordist

Everyone hates the DMCA | VOX INDIE

Unfortunately, rather than manage copyright, it’s provided a huge loophole through which a number of online pirate entrepreneurs sail blissfully through. Known as the “safe harbor” provision, this oft-abused language has served to shelter digital thieves at the expense of rights holders. ”Safe Harbor” has enabled the growth of a criminal cancer and it’s a cancer–that as of now–cannot be beaten, only kept (marginally) at bay. As Wikipedia notes, “The DMCA’s principal innovation in the field of copyright is the exemption from direct and indirect liability of internet service providers and other intermediaries.” As I’ve suggested previously, any update to the law should include a requirement that in order to qualify for the limitations to liability that safe-harbor offers, certain user-generated content sites must implement reasonable technology to mitigate content theft.

READ THE FULL POST AT VOX INDIE:
http://voxindie.org/everyone-hates-the-dmca

by Trichordist Editor

Why Can’t Songwriters Audit? A Brief Guide to Statutory Audits Under the U.S. Copyright Act

Essential reading for all songwriters and musicians.

Music Technology Policy

BLANCHE

Whoever you are…I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

From A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

Songwriters earn a sizable percentage of their ever decreasing income from mechanical royalties.  Until the last few years, mechanical royalties were almost always licensed under direct licenses to record companies that incorporated by reference the statutory license provisions of Section 115 of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act and the corresponding regulations.  Section 115 is a direct–and almost word for word–descendant of Section 1(e) of the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act.

Why so little change in nearly 70 years?  Until 2000 or so, nobody used statutory licenses except in the rarest of circumstances.  Instead, the statutory license became something like the Uniform Partnership Act or the Uniform Commercial Code.  It could be used for reference but was often–almost always–modified in a direct license.

The main point that was added in these…

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by Trichordist Editor