You’re kidding me right?  What is this for? No accounting? No cover letter.  Is this some sort of “bait” check?  How can NMPA/HFA/Spotify settlement possibly be “fair” with this sort of nonsense going on? 

For those not familiar with the nuances of the music licensing business  Harry Fox Agency (HFA)  is s former subsidiary of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA).  HFA acts as a clearing house for those wishing to  obtain mechanical licenses (copy AND distribute) a songwriters work.  So for instance streaming services like Spotify can come to HFA and obtain licenses for many songs, but not all.  It is important to note that HFA can only issue licenses for songwriters/publishers that opt into their service.

So how do streaming services get the licenses from the remaining writers?  Normally they hire a third party to track down the remaining writers and send what are called “Notices of Intent” to exercise a compulsory license.

In the case of Spotify they hired Harry Fox Agency to  perform this task.  Are you following me here?  This means that Harry Fox is on one hand representing songwriters and publishers,  but on the other hand they are also representing Spotify.   Does this seem like a conflict of interest to anyone?

Now in my case (and virtually every independent songwriter/publisher I surveyed),  they never bothered to send valid “notices of intent” to obtain the licenses for Spotify to use my songs until after the fact (hence the class action against Spotify).  In the vernacular: they totally fucked up.

But Harry Fox Agency was also apparently hired to pay royalties and account to songwriters on behalf of Spotify.   Have they also fucked this up as well?   Yes.  Just look at the check above.   Here are just some of the things wrong with this check

1. What is the check for?   Songwriter royalties?   Is it for just being a cool band?    Or is it a super sleazy legal trick  (cashing a check is sometimes viewed as an implicit license)?
2. Are they sending out checks like this to other independent publishers? To whom and why?
3. If it is for songwriting royalties,  which tracks? How many spins?
4. What accounting period does it cover?
5. How did they arrive at this amount?  If there is no license in effect, there is no royalty rate with which to calculate a royalty?
6. As they are acting as an agent of Spotify isn’t this an improper Ex-parte communication?
7. They don’t have a taxpayer ID from me, because there is no contract or license. How do they even know they are paying the proper party?
8. Where does the 28% withholding tax go?  I’m not a tax expert but this doesn’t seem like the  proper procedure.

So HFA is clearly fucked up. But why does this matter?  Because the NMPA/HFA and Spotify all have an interest in stopping the songwriter class action.

1. The NMPA owned HFA when they began working (and fucking up) on behalf of Spotify . NMPA owned HFA until July of 2015.   It is likely that NMPA had to indemnify the new owners of HFA private equity firm Rizvi Traverse.  In turn it’s highly likely that HFA had to indemnify Spotify for services (poorly) performed.   Thus it’s in NMPAs interest to make this all go away.  This is not the same as being in the interest of NMPA’s constituent publishers. Why are constituent publishers being dragged into this?
2. NMPA/HFA/Spotify settlement leaves HFA in place.   Look at the check above!  How can any publisher or songwriter ever have any confidence that they will ever receive a proper accounting? One of the reasons we filed a class action against Spotify was to bring in an independent third party auditor and bring some much needed transparency to the process.

The choice is clear for songwriters and publishers.  A backroom deal between related parties or a transparent court supervised process?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A recent story in the Daily Caller reported on some good open source analysis by a corporate ethics group that demonstrated Google’s funding of the “Center for Democracy and Technology”, a Washington, DC based lobby shop long associated with Google. The Daily Caller reports that: An influential tech industry watchdog group that has received millions […]

via Why Does the Center for Democracy & Technology Take Millions from Google? — MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY

 

Are you fucking kidding me?  A Survey Monkey form?  If you are a Tunecore songwriter you recently got an email asking you to sign up for the NMPA/Harry Fox Agency/ Spotify settlement.  Songwriters are directed to the above Survey Monkey form.  This is it.  No details. Nothing.Nada. In particular there is no mention of the possible statutory damages that songwriters are waiving by opting in to this.

So it’s your choice songwriters:

Sign up for a backroom deal cooked up between the NMPA, Harry Fox Agency and Spotify? Or wait for a FAIR and TRANSPARENT process supervised by a federal judge?

Wish all choices were this easy.

 

Does your typical “grassroots” group get $96,000 dollars from a company with an address in a mini-industrial park in Michigan?  I can’t imagine that a company based in such a location would have $96,000 a year to give to an anti-copyright group like Fight For The Future?   (see more on Fight For The Future here, here, here and here).

But from the Federal 990 tax return for Fight For The Future:

A search of Michigan State business licensing records seems to indicate that this company is not registered in Michigan.

I’m not sure what this ultimately means, but here are some other businesses that list physical addresses as 2885 Sanford Ave SW Grandville, Michigan.  I have no idea if they are related.

World Fertility Experts

Seems an odd location for this sort of business.  Overseas fertility treatments.

Not in state business entity records

http://www.worldfertilityexperts.com/contact-us.php

Dev-Com

Vitamins, investment clubs and protein supplements?!?  Those things really go together!

Below is the Manta listing.  No other records could be located.

The Mesh Lawsuit Group

As far as I can tell there is no law firm or “lawsuit group” in the US.  Michigan business entity records have nothing listed.

Flip it Friday

A $49.95 a month online curriculum for flipping houses.

My Fast Diploma

Not found in Michigan State business entity database.

 

GS Media

Looks to be a penny stock promoter.   Again no business records in Michigan state database.  They come up in this interesting article here

Global Gaming Network (GBGM): First the pump, now the big dump

 

 

 

Does this look like a grassroots organization to you?  Pie chart from Fight For The Future’s 2015  financial documents. 

At every turn “grassroots” Fight For The Future has been there to undermine artists’ copyright protections in ways that benefit major technology companies.

They famously organized a scripted automated dial-in that overwhelmed the US Congress phone systems during SOPA deliberations creating the impression that thousands of Americans were spontaneously calling in opposition to copyright protections for artists and rights holders. I’ve never understood why this scripted robotic dial in campaign was never investigated.  (Read Chris Ruen’s excellent book Freeloading for more on the “spontaneous” corporate lobbyist led anti-SOPA uprising.)

 

Similarly they organized an automated dial in against the TPP apparently because it doesn’t weaken copyright enough!  That’s right, FFTF thinks TPP doesn’t do enough to undermine US  cultural exports!  So while pretending to protect american jobs the “progressive” FFTF are actually hurting workers in the largely unionized cultural industries while benefiting anti-union libertarian leaning technology company!  As Lenin might have called them they are “useful idiots.”  But that’s not all Fight For The Future targeted eight Democratic Senators,  and promised to oppose them in their next election.   “Oh and just one last question… about that ‘no’ at  Part IV item 3  on your federal 990 tax return…”

Before it was deactivated the link above allowed sharing of illegally uploaded video of King’s I Have a Dream speech across all social media. 

On “Internet Freedom Day”  they organized the worlds first anti-civil rights  “civil disobedience” campaign directed at the Martin Luther King Estate by illegally copying and distributing Kings “I Have A Dream Speech” and encouraging thousands of others to “share” the video on digital platforms.   I’m not a lawyer, but isn’t this criminal willful infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 506?  Also how is it that a non-profit keeps it’s tax exempt status when it’s committing criminal acts?

And most recently they used an automated script to “comment bomb” the regulations.gov website in response to a request for comments from the copyright office in a  review of the “Whack-a-Mole” DMCA takedown provisions.  I believe their efforts were problematic, illegal or violated federal rules for non-profits. Possibly fraudulent as EXACTLY 86,000 of the responses are identical!  A detailed explanation is provided here:

https://thetrichordist.com/2016/04/19/exactly-86000-identical-comments-the-illegal-comment-bombing-of-dmca-notice-takedown-review-by-google-proxy-fight-for-the-future/

This is not a grassroots operation.  This is a cynical astroturf lobbying organization.

 

Blake Morgan asked me to post his statement on these awesome students at Cal State Chico, the student run SOTA Productions and especially KCSC Radio with big congratulations on their campus #irespectmusic event campaigning for artist pay for radio play! An uplifting surprise before Blake’s panels at Canadian Music Week next week when he takes […]

via Cal State Chico Students and @KCSCRadio Say #irespectmusic in a Big Way! — MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY

Diary

Demagogue much?  German Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda complains she can’t read The Diary of Anne Frank    It’s available on Amazon and iBooks for as little as $6.99. It’s also likely available in her local bookstore.  So what she really means is she doesn’t want to pay for it!

Artists, authors and performers have long been familiar with the moral depravity and demagoguery of the Pirate Party, but it has probably never been that clear to the general public.  Fortunately this recent series of tweets by Julia Reda (EU Member of Parliament for the German Pirate Party),  her self identified “minion”  Gilles Bordelais,  and author John Degan  make it quite easy to understand.  ( UPDATE: John Degan has an excellent blog on this exchange here : Why I bought a book for a German Pirate)

The thing is Reda and Bordelais DO have access to The Diary of Anne Frank. What the German MEP Reda and her minion  (his self applied moniker, not mine) are whinging about is that they don’t have FREE access to the book. Yes this highly paid Member of EU Parliament is balking at paying approximately $7 for a widely available eBook! But she doesn’t mention that. Why?

Clearly she intends for the general public to be left with the impression that the diary is not available because of “bad” copyright laws. This is pure demagoguery and if the EU parliament was an actual functioning and responsible governing body (instead of a bad parody of a student mock UN)  she might actually be reprimanded for this nonsense.

Pirate Party MEP bravely fights the powerful and evil Anne Frank Foundation!

But the demagoguery and distortions are not the worst of it. When you consider the fact that her actions have the potential to undermine the revenues and hence the good work of the Anne Frank Foundation (supported by sales of The Diary of Anne Frank) you have to question her personal judgment and qualifications to represent Germany at the EU.  Through the Anne Frank Foundation  sales and licensing fees support a vast array of charities and social projects. Many of these entities are focused on anti-semitism, anti-racism, anti-fascism and encouraging Jewish-Palestinian dialogue.  There is even a fund to pay for the medial expenses of those that risked their lives to protect Jews during WWII.

You can see more here. 

And it pains me greatly to point out the painfully obvious but: You’d think a GERMAN sitting member of  European parliament would have a little more sensitivity and think twice before using The Diary of Anne Frank and Anne Frank Foundation for a cheap political stunt.   After all it was her countrymen that reduced the length of Anne Frank’s copyright (70 years plus life) by murdering her.   This is not a cheap shot, because Reda and her fellow pirates are specifically arguing that it should be in the public domain based on the year of her death rather than the later death of her father (a co-author of the edited commercial work). 

It makes me sick to my stomach to even have to explain this.

So my question to Julia Reda is this:

What’s more important?

• Scoring cheap political points while financially undermining a foundation that fights fascism, intolerance and anti-semitism?
• Or being a decent human being?

You can express your opinions to Julia Reda by tweeting at her here @Senficon  (although she’s blocked many of us already)

email her here: julia.reda@europarl.europa.eu

or call her office: +32(0)2 28 45732

or mail her a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank here

European Parliament
Rue Wiertz
Altiero Spinelli 05F158
1047 Brussels

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Addendum on MLK’s “Dream” speech.  

Evan Greer, Fight for the Future founder and Boston’s first anti-civil rights folksinger  organized a civil disobedience campaign against the King family estate by encouraging people to violate Kings rights and post the I Have A Dream speech to YouTube and social media.  Why? The answer my friend is blowing in the Center for Rights in Action Federal 990 tax forms.

It should be noted that this outrageous and tone deaf demagoguery is not just an EU Pirate Party problem. A US organization with similar views  on copyright baited and harassed the family of Martin Luther King on the 50th anniversary of his “I Have A Dream Speech”  Fight For The Future  organized a “civil disobedience” campaign to post the King speech to YouTube and other social media sites against the wishes of the King estate.  It’s time for these spiteful copyleft bullies to be called out.

You can write Fight For The Future here: press@fightforthefuture.org

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All screenshots.

 

Editor Note: “Plonk” is european for “I’m an arrogant Twat”

 

 

As is well known, Über is as close to Google as 1 is to 2. So, if there’s any silver lining in the Über corporate power grab going on in Austin right now over a ballot measure to bring Über drivers in line with background checks on taxi drivers, it’s that all the world can see just how […]

via Drivers, Über Is Selling Your Job: Google, Über and Lyft Revolving Door Lobbyist Asks Feds for Driverless Cars — MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY