It’s common for lawyers to try to defend their poor moral choices in clients by saying, “I was just the lawyer,” kind of like “I was just following orders.”  If you were talking about a criminal defense lawyer or someone who chose to defend a controversial bad guy because everyone is entitled to a defense, that would be one thing.  Particularly if the lawyer was a poorly compensated public defender.  But when you’re talking about someone who takes a job complete with stock options that makes them rich, that “I was just the lawyer” thing is harder to rationalize.

Pandora’s Assistant General Counsel Christopher Harrison not only brings with him the Pandora baggage, but as Billboard reports, he’s seen this movie and he knows how it ends.  In Billboard’s post about the payola issues in Merlin’s direct deal with Pandora we discover some details about Harrison’s past that every…

Pandora’s Publicity Stunt: Pandora bought  South Dakota terrestrial radio station minus the broadcast license.

Back in June of 2013 Pandoras Associate Chief Counsel Chris Harrison (Songwriter Enemy #1) wrote an article for The Hill that implied that Pandora had purchased a radio station in South Dakota. The idea was that they were somehow now equivalent to Clear Channel and deserved the same percentage of revenue deal for sound recordings that Clear Channel receives.  Never mind that much of Clear Channel’s content IS NOT MUSIC and terrestrial broadcast has enormous capital costs so percentages of revenues are not comparable.  THE REAL PROBLEM and why this is misleading is that Pandora did not own the broadcast license of this station.   Transfer of this license requires FCC approval and as far as we can tell it appears Pandora had not even filed for transfer of this license at the time of…

“The sleep of reason produces monsters”-Goya

By the end of 2015 Pandora Executives  and Investors will have sucked nearly 1/2 a billion dollars in “stock compensation” out of the company.  Yet Pandora complains very publicly to the US Congress about being unable to cover royalties to performers and Songwriters. Hence the massive lobbying effort in Washington DC and endless lawsuits against performers and songwriters.  Pandora is currently pleading for lower royalties before the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington DC.

Sen Ron Wyden the hand puppet of webcasters and broadcasters (and our vote for Manchurian Candidate) even repeated this crap when he announced the Pandora/broadcaster backed Internet Radio Fairness Act.

“Senator Wyden is introducing the Internet Radio Fairness Act (S.3609) to remove the regulatory shackles preventing Internet radio from being commercially viable” (italics added for emphasis).

But this is not true.  The interactive radio monopoly Pandora is not profitable simply because…

First I bet you didn’t know that US Government sets the prices for many uses of songs and recordings?  What? Are you telling me that in 2015 there is not a technologically feasible way to let the free market set the price of songs and recordings for broadcast, webcasting and streaming?   Bat-shit crazy ain’t it?

Well if you consider that some of the largest most politically powerful corporations benefit from this process it makes a little more sense.  I’ll name just two: Clear Channel and Google. Pay to play government at its finest.

Before you accuse me of pie-ism (arguing over who gets how much songwriters or performers get of the paltry and shrinking pie) I am not. I’m simply pointing out how irrational it is to have the government setting prices in this day and age.   It is not even clear that the process is constitutional as much…

What follows are the comments I submitted to the DOJ against the  ASCAP/BMI consent decrees. You have until the end of the day today to submit comments.  http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/ascap-bmi-decree-review.html

The Consent Decrees Violate Individual Rights.

I am an American songwriter, a member of BMI and a member of the bands Cracker and Camper van Beethoven. I’m submitting this comment on my own behalf in opposition to the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees. I believe these government actions essentially are a compulsory license outside of the Congress and take away songwriters’ rights to due process of law.

Just to be clear, I am not saying that Justice Department consent decrees in general are oppressive. I am saying that the way these particular consent decrees operate is oppressive to songwriters. That operation is oppressive because of the extremely long period of time they have been in effect, because they take away…

As the guardian reported last week, a high ranking Google Executive has taken a seat on Spotify’s Board. This weekend we learned that the Google/YouTube’s Shiva Rajaraman is moving from YouTube to Spotify.  Rajaraman was part of the team launching YouTube’s music subscription service that would compete with Spotify.   While it is quite common for technology executives (and entertainment executives)  to move from one company to another, and for one company to have a seat on the board of another company, the fact that both of these companies are involved in licensing songs and recordings should raise concerns with The DOJ. Why?  Because it makes a mockery of the consent decrees that govern songwriters in their negotiations with these services. Because in effect the consent decrees are now backwards. There is a very real possibility of collusion and anti-competitive behavior from the services. (some would argue it’s already…

Seems like every six months or so I have friends  forward me an article or interview with a manager or agent extolling the virtues of streaming (and sometimes even piracy.)  Usually this comes with some note that reads something like this “Agent/Manager  X thinks streaming/piracy is a good thing, Why don’t you?”  I am always  perplexed by this.   Of course some managers and agents love streaming and piracy! Less revenue from recorded music means their artists must play more and more live shows to make up the difference.  I thought everyone knew this.

You see managers and agents make virtually all their money from an artist’s live performance not from the artist’s recorded music.    However screwed up it might seem from an artist’s perspective it makes perfect financial sense (at least in the short term) for managers and agents to turn a blind eye to piracy and low…

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid it down today in his speech to a joint meeting of Congress:

“ISIS is armed with butcher knives, captured weapons and YouTube…”

This will come as no surprise to MTP readers as we have been hammering this issue for a long, long time.  And of course YouTube has gotten away with it so far, just like Google has with so many of its bad acts. Thanks to sharp reporting by Laurie Segall at CNN Money this story got on their air:

Jennifer Aniston lauds the benefits of Aveeno, Bud Light shows off beer at a concert, and Secret sells its freshly scented deodorant.

Pretty standard commercials, but what’s different is the content that comes after. In this case, they’re all followed by ISIS and jihadi videos.

Terrorism analyst Mubin Shaikh said one video is part of an ongoing propaganda series that ISIS produces and…