Category: Polls

@Artist Rights Institute Newsletter 3/24/25

The Artist Rights Institute’s news digest Newsletter

New Survey for Songwriters: We are surveying songwriters about whether they want to form a certified union. Please fill out our short Survey Monkey confidential survey here! Thanks!

Songwriters and Union Organizing

RICO and Criminal Copyright Infringement

perry-v-shein-order-12b6Download

AI Piracy

@alexreisner: Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI (Alex Reisner/The Atlantic)

OpenAI and Google’s Dark New Campaign to Dismantle Artists’ Protections (Brian Merchant/Blood in the Machine)

Alden newspapers slam OpenAI, Google’s AI proposals (Sara Fischer/Axios)

AI Litigation

French Publishers and Authors Sue Meta over Copyright Works Used in AI Training (Kelvin Chan/AP)

DC Circuit Affirms Human Authorship Required for Copyright (David Newhoff/The Illusion of More)

OpenAI Asks White House for Relief From State AI Rules (Jackie Davalos/Bloomberg)

Microsoft faces FTC antitrust probe over AI and licensing practices (Prasanth Aby Thomas/Computer World)

Google and its Confederate AI Platforms Want Retroactive Absolution for AI Training Wrapped in the American Flag(Chris Castle/MusicTechPolicy)

AI and Human Rights

Human Rights and AI Opt Out (Chris Castle/MusicTechPolicy)

by thetrichordist

Survey Results: Physical and Download Mechanical Rates Survey–Artist Rights Watch

Many readers participated in the Physical and Download Mechanical Rates Survey that various organizations have sent to their members over the last few weeks. Here are the results of the main questions for which we had 361 respondents who self-selected their participation. (Other answers included comments which we chose not to publish for privacy reasons.). 

The results suggest that participants were mostly informed songwriters who had never been asked before what they thought about the issues in the Copyright Royalty Board. We would have to conclude that any of our regular readers would be a bit skewed toward knowledgeable because between the Trichordist, MusicTechPolicy, ARW, Hypebot and Celebrity Access we were probably carrying a very high percentage of the available information on the frozen mechanicals issues.

It also is striking how few respondents said they had ever been asked what they think about any mechanical rates (physical, download, streaming), an important and easily measurable issue. This is something to add to the learning from this episode. It may be that our data is skewed, but even so we didn’t expect that 68% would say they’d never even been asked their opinion. An easy way to find out what people think about something is to ask them. 

by Trichordist

Keeping the Songwriter Survey Open!!

Thanks for the HUGE response to the songwriter survey on what you think the new unfrozen mechanical rate should be!! The response has been so strong we’re going to keep the survey open so more of you can participate.

This Survey Monkey questionnaire is anonymous and easy to take–3 minutes to complete–and you could really help a lot by giving your opinions on what you think the rate should be! We will post the results so everyone can see.

You can start the survey at this link. Thank you!

by Trichordist

Please take our physical and download mechanical royalty rates survey and help decide the new rates!

We are participating in a survey being conducted by a number of songwriter groups around the world to ask our readers what you think the new un-frozen mechanical royalty rate should be since the Copyright Royalty Judges rejected the settlement that would have extended the 9.1¢ freeze. Trichordist readers have heard a lot about the frozen mechanicals but after the Judges rejected extending the freeze we have moved on now to a new phase–if the rate isn’t 9.1¢ anymore, what should it be?

This Survey Monkey questionnaire is anonymous and easy to take–3 minutes to complete–and you could really help a lot by giving your opinions on what you think the rate should be! We will post the results so everyone can see.

You can start the survey at this link. Thank you!

by Trichordist Editor

Stay tuned for a songwriter royalty questionnaire!

After all the effort and achievement by our great audience in support of songwriters getting paid fairly in the #FrozenMechanicals crisis, we are finally coming to where the rubber meets the road and trying to decide how much songwriters should get paid by record companies selling music in three ways (called “configurations”): 

permanent downloads, like iTunes and Amazon; 

vinyl discs, like you buy in record shops on Records Store Day;

and compact discs (CDs).

We’re expecting the final proposal to get made in a matter of days, and we thought it would be good to start with a short Survey Monkey questionnaire to get an idea of what this audience thinks. We’re collaborating with a number of songwriter organizations to distribute the questionnaire to their members and friends.

All the data will be anonymous and will be released when the questionnaire is done!

The plan is to get some more evidence of what we all think about a few core pricing ideas, thanks to the awesome Copyright Royalty Judges who have rejected extending the 16 year freeze in response to comments from the public and objections by George Johnson, the only songwriter in the Phonorecords IV proceeding.

Watch this space!!

by Trichordist