Category: Songwriter Rights

SoundExchange and BandPage Collaborate to Put $2M in Unclaimed Royalties in Musicians Pockets | Music Industry News Wire

Music Industry Newswire reports on some good news!

WASHINGTON, D.C. /Music Industry Newswire/ — SoundExchange, a music industry non-profit focused on distributing digital performance royalties to recording artists and record labels, and BandPage, a leading solution for musicians to manage their presence online, recently teamed up to notify recording artists of unclaimed royalties with SoundExchange.

Together the two groups identified more than $2 million in unclaimed digital performance royalties for thousands of BandPage musicians who have not yet registered with SoundExchange. Bandpage musicians with unclaimed performance royalties will be notified by BandPage directly via email.

READ THE FULL POST AT MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS WIRE:
http://musicindustrynewswire.com/2012/08/07/min5749_140533.php/soundexchange-and-bandpage-collaborate-to-put-2m-in-unclaimed-royalties-in-musicians-pockets/

by Trichordist Editor

Xbox Music : Microsoft to Pay The Most of Any Music Streaming Service?

This could get interesting. Digital Music News reports “The Xbox Music streaming service is venturing into iOS and Android platforms, as well as free internet streaming, with newly adorned with apps and features. The Web service will provide on-demand access to 30 million songs, with an ad-free subscription or ad-supported free use.”

What makes this even more interesting is that Microsoft appears to be paying more than any other streaming service that we know of  (we don’t know what Itunes Radio is paying yet).

Faza at The Cynical Musician wrote this:

A Quickie: XBox Music Royalties

Since this is streaming money, there’s not a lot of it, but the rate is absolutely astounding: the latest statement pegs a stream at 3.6 cents. Yep, you read that right: several cents a pop. Traditionally, I’ll do a quick stream-to-download calculation which works out at 18 XBox Music streams to one iTunes download (both numbers for songs to which we own the entirety of rights, making CD Baby the only middle-man – they take a commission of 9% I believe).

It’s a sign of the times when we get excited by a per stream rate of 3.6 cents…

by Trichordist Editor

Online Piracy of Entertainment Content Keeps Soaring | The Los Angeles Times

The amount of Internet bandwidth used to illegally download movies, TV shows, music, books and video games has jumped 160% since 2010, a study says.

Despite the growth of Netflix, Amazon.com and other legal channels for watching entertainment online, the volume of pirated movies, TV shows, music, books and video games online continues to grow at a rapid pace.

The amount of bandwidth used for copyright infringement in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific has grown nearly 160% from 2010 to 2012, accounting for 24% of total Internet bandwidth, according to a study from NetNames, the British brand protection firm.

At the same time, the number of people engaged in copyright infringement has grown dramatically too. In January2013, 327 million unique users illegally sought copyrighted content, generating 14 billion page views on websites focused on piracy, up 10% from November 2011, according to the report.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-fi-ct-piracy-bandwith-20130917,0,1550997.story

by trichordist

How Google (Doesn’t) Fight Piracy | Vox Indie

Claiming to be a “leader” in the fight against piracy is Google’s first mistake

This past week Google issued a report, “How Google Fights Piracy,” in which the tech giant attempts to explain what a great job it’s doing leading battle against online piracy. After reading it I think a more accurate title would be “Why Google Shouldn’t Have to Fight Piracy Because it Offers so Much Other Good Stuff.”

In an effort to burnish their tarnished image, the authors resort to repeating well-worn and disingenuous Google-spawned memes (which I’ve repeatedly deconstructed on this blog). These include:

* YouTube makes money for artists so there’s no need to provide a transparent accounting

* DMCA abuse is a considerable problem Search is “not a major driver of traffic to pirate sites”

* Google is committed to “rooting out and ejecting rogue sites” from AdSense

* Google quickly and efficiently terminates Blogger websites that feature pirated content

READ THE FULL STORY HERE:
http://voxindie.org/how-google-does-not-fight-piracy

by trichordist

Blake Morgan on Being a Musician, Pandora and Artists Rights (Video)

Guest post by Blake Morgan (copyright in the author)

Relativity Media and Google asked if I’d sit down and talk about my life in music, my new record, and the current battle being waged between musicians and Pandora that’s been garnering so many headlines. It was a terrific conversation that lasted almost two hours. Of course the piece they were looking to do was only going to be around five to eight minutes, and in the end it still turned out to be over 10 minutes long. But, there were a couple of points I felt were important beyond what was kept for the piece that I’d like to briefly underline here.

The first is that as big as the battle with Pandora is, the battle musicians are now saddled up for across the board is even bigger. Calling out Pandora on its unscrupulous double-talk to Congress and Wall Street, and fighting to get them to change their behavior is necessary and righteous. And I’m optimistic that in the long run that battle will get won. But we also have to keep our eyes on the prize: ending ad-funded piracy.

As long as the music world is bleeding revenue from the theft of our music (which in turn is sponsored by giant corporations that place ads right on the illegal download pages), the real problem won’t get solved. Our work, and our livelihoods will continue to be stolen right out from under us. Again, I’m optimistic, and I trust that we can focus on more than one righteous battle at a time. Both the important smaller one, and the over-reaching larger one.

Second, I wanted to just underline a whiff of good news in all this that I’ve been noticing. For the first time in this struggle, I’m seeing music lovers join music makers in our outrage. I’m getting letters and emails, messages, and tweets from music-loving people who are raising their own voices and saying, “I’m with you! I really understand this now…we want to get the music that matters to us, and we want you to get paid fairly.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people tell me this, and it’s in stark contrast to what I’ve heard over the last ten years.

So I’m not hopeful in a vacuum…I believe the consciousness is changing, and that there’s a great foundation to build on. There’s so much work to do, and little time to do it if we’re going to save the young musicians out there who are hoping in turn to be musicians as their profession.

You can’t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time.

Let’s win these fights. Let’s get to work.

###

RELATED:
Pandora Tries to Convince a Musician That He Isn’t Getting Screwed…

by trichordist

#StandWithSongwriters Petition Against Pandora’s Exploitation

Please sign the Petition Here:
https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/4273-standwithsongwriters-petition

The rights of songwriters are under attack. Pandora Media Inc., which controls 70% of the US streaming market, has launched an aggressive campaign to pay songwriters and composers less than a fair market share for their work – even as the company’s revenue and listener base has soared.

As songwriters and composers, we value the opportunities Pandora and other music streaming companies create for our music to reach new audiences. In return, we want Pandora to value our contribution to your business.

Right now, a song that is streamed on Pandora 1,000 times, earns the songwriter only 8 cents on average. And yet, Pandora is going to great lengths – even taking songwriters to court – to pay us even less.

Music drives Pandora’s business. If the company’s revenues keep getting larger, why should the rate it pays songwriters keep getting smaller?

Songwriters are not the enemy. Instead of fighting to pay music creators less than a fair market rate, join us in an effort to construct fair music licenses that allow songwriters and composers to thrive alongside the businesses that revolve around our music.

Songwriters deserve fair pay. If you agree, commit a tweet and help send this message to incoming Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews.

by trichordist

BREAKING: Pandora Runs to the Government to Screw Songwriters Again

Good news: Pandora is scheduled to come to the stock market with a “secondary offering”, meaning the company is essentially having a second IPO. According to the Wall Street Journal:

The Internet radio company and its venture-capital backer Crosslink Capital Inc. are slated to offer 14 million shares late Thursday[, i.e., tomorrow], a stake that was worth $336 million when it was announced after Monday’s close.

So music is good business, right? It sure is–for everyone but the songwriters and artists.

In case any songwriter wondered, Pandora has more money than you and they intend to use it to screw you as hard as they possibly can to enrich themselves.

Today Pandora won a truly Pandora-style “victory” in the ASCAP rate court by getting a federal judge to rule that Pandora–a monopolist in webcasting–can use the out of date ASCAP consent decree to force songwriters to license to them.

And make no mistake–this is a very important case to Pandora because the one way that songwriters have of getting out of the trap inside Pandora’s house of cards is to say no and refuse to license to Pandora. And “no” is the one thing that Pandora can’t have you say because their only product is music. The government granted them an effective monopoly on webcasting and Pandora intends to keep it that way.

READ THE FULL POST HERE AT MUSIC TECH POLICY:
http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/pandora-runs-to-the-government-to-screw-songwriters-again/

MORE HERE AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130918pandora

by trichordist

Announcing The Content Creators Coalition | Brooklyn NYC Meeting Sept 24th

A new Artists Rights collective is forming by Artists & Creators, for Artists & Creators.

There is a group meeting in Brooklyn on Sept. 24th.

Sign up here to get more details about the CCC and request meeting information:
http://contentcreatorscoalition.org

WHO WE ARE
A dedicated group of artists, creators, and stakeholders are forming a new and unprecedented coalition. This coalition will allow the people who create the content that powers the web — recording artists, songwriters, journalists, filmmakers, producers, photographers, visual artists, and performers — to join together and exercise their collective voice in shaping the future of their industries.

If you are a professional artist, manager, or creator of what is often described as ‘content’, please join us. Sign up on our email list and we will contact you soon with details on how you can get involved.

WHY WE ARE ORGANIZING
Creators of all content have the right to a collective voice. We are joining together to represent the interests of participating creators in order to reshape our industries into fair and sustainable environments.

HOW WE FUNCTION
We are presently developing the legal, organizational, and technical infrastructure to create a unique organization for creators: one that harnesses the advantages of a representational and participatory structure and provides a platform for members to suggest actions, provide feedback, and vote directly in coalition campaigns.

CCC MISSION STATEMENT
We believe that individual artists cannot be expected to negotiate with corporations the economic size of nation-states. As professional creators of cultural content we join together to aggregate our power and to represent our interests in discussions and decisions that not only impact our ability to thrive from our work but, also enrich society with the benefits of a flourishing creative economy.

by Trichordist Editor

The Smoking Gun of Internet Exploitation of Musicians and Songwriters

There have been a lot of predictions about how the internet was going to empower musicians and create a new professional middle class. Unfortunately, the year end  numbers from Soundscan for the last two years just do not support those claims.

2011:

in 2011 there were 76,865 new releases, only 3,148 sold more than 2,000 units = 4% of new releases sold over 2,000 units

in 2011 there were 878,369 total releases in print, only 15,613 sold more than 2,000 units = 2% of ALL RELEASES in print sold more than 2,000 units.

2012:

in 2012 there were 76,882 new releases, only 3,074 sold more than 2,000 units = 4% of new releases sold over 2,000 units

in 2012 there were 909,799 total releases in print, only 15,507 sold more than 2,000 units = 2% of ALL RELEASES in print sold more than 2,000 units.

So in the last two calendar years only 4% of New Releases and only 2% of ALL releases managed to sell more than 2,000 units.

That means 96% of all music released and in print sells less then 2,000 units per year. Please tell us again about all of this internet empowerment?

Who do you really think is selling more than 2,000 units a year, the Indie/DIY artist uploading to TuneCore, or the artist with label support? Let us not forget, the indie/DIY artist is spending their own money now on marketing, PR, social media, everything – without those cost and expenses being advanced to the band as investments by a label.

A decade in from predictions of empowerment what we have found is more exploitation in the facts.

Overall, industry wide revenue from recorded sales is down over 50% as the growth of illegally operating infringing businesses continue to climb.

This means THREE things:

1) The overall pie for revenue opportunities is getting SMALLER, not larger.

2) The distribution of wealth is more concentrated with the largest (and legacy) artists getting a bigger overall share.

3) There are LESS opportunities for new artists to have sustainable careers without the aid of label financing.

These numbers are also consistent with this report from Salon:

No Sympathy for the Creative Class | Salon

Of course, those who continue to work in the creative class are the lucky ones. Employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show just how badly the press and media have missed the story.

Other fields show how the recession aggravated existing trends, but reveal that an implosion arrived before the market crash and has continued through our supposed recovery. “Musical groups and artists” plummeted by 45.3 percent between August 2002 and August of 2011. “Newspaper, book and directory publishers” are down 35.9 percent between January 2002 and a decade later; jobs among “periodical publishers” fell by 31.6 percent during the same period.

And then there’s this from Digital Music News:

Recording Sales Declines & Musician Employment, 1999-2011…| Digital Music News

There’s more music being created than ever before, but paradoxically, musicians are making less. Which means there are also fewer musicians and music professionals enjoying gainful employment, thanks to a deflated ecosystem once primed by major labels and marked-up CDs.

It’s a difficult reality to stomach, especially given years of misguided assumptions about digital platforms. But it’s not really a revolution if it’s not getting people paid. And according to stats supplied by the US Department of Labor, there are 41 percent fewer paid musicians since 1999.

So there you have it from two different independent sources both arriving at a reduction of 40%+ fewer full time working middle class musicians since 1999 and 2002 respectively.

As we like to say around here, “If The Internet Is Working For Musicians, Why aren’t More Musicians Working Professionally?” and “Artists, Know They Enemy – Who’s Ripping You Off And How.”

The enemy are the for profit businesses making money from our recordings and songwriting illegally. Let’s be clear about this, our battle is with businesses ripping us off by illegally distributing and exploiting our work for profit. This is not about our fans. It is about commercial companies in the businesses of profiting from our work, paying us nothing and then telling us to blame our fans. That is the ultimate in cowardice and dishonesty.

by Trichordist Editor