The Trichordist

Congressman Ted Deutch, Karoline Kramer-Gould and Blake Morgan in Washington, DC

Who can forget Karoline Kramer-Gould’s courageous stand supporting artist pay for radio play against the MIC Coalition and the National Association of Broadcasters?  The former Music Director at WJCU is on Capitol Hill meeting with Members of Congress to give them her point of view in support of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act that would guarantee fair compensation for artists played on terrestrial radio.

That would be all artists–because Fair Play Fair Pay closes the “Pandora loophole” that allows Pandora and Sirius to stiff artists recording before 1972 and their heirs.

We all owe Karoline a big vote of thanks for sticking her neck out against the NAB, Pandora, Sirius, Google and the rest of the MIC Coalition.

Congressman Ted Deutch is a great supporter of artist rights and holds a sign that is itself a play on…

The top three artist rights stories this week in review

1. Blake Morgan’s Must Read Huffington Post Op-Ed, “Why Music Makers Are the Real American Innovators“:  If you are sick and tired of being talked down to, called a Luddite, ignored, demeaned and exploited by The Man 2.0 in the Grey Flannel Suit, you’ll love Blake’s latest homerun op-ed:

Music makers don’t require a lesson on American innovation at all.

We know all about American innovation.

Rock & Roll is an American innovation. Hip-Hop is an American innovation. Jazz isan American innovation. Blues, Country, Gospel, Bluegrass, each of these — and so many others — are distinct American innovations.

Music is one of the things America still makes that the world still wants. The people who make that music should be paid fairly for their work.

That’s our argument.

2.  UK Artist Rights Advocates…

There is an increasing chorus in the press wondering just how much Google could influence elections without any of us knowing it happened.  Sound crazy?  Not so much.  A leading academic has a study demonstrating its entirely possible, and seems particularly possible in tight elections or a voter population that is relatively small compared to the U.S. and highly concentrated–like Canada.  (MTP first reported this story in 2013:  Now That’s What I Call Bundling: Can Google Throw Elections?)

As Professor Robert Epstein writes in a recent Politico story:

Research I have been directing in recent years suggests that Google, Inc., has amassed far more power to control elections—indeed, to control a wide variety of opinions and beliefs—than any company in history has ever had. Google’s search algorithm can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more—up to 80 percent in some…

[Editor Charlie sez:  MTP’s first post of 2016 is a guest post by Stephen Carlisle, an entertainment lawyer with over 25 years experience in private practice in the State of Florida.  The post first appeared on the Nova Southeastern University Office of Copyright site where Mr. Carlisle is the university’s first Copyright Officer.  Posted with permission of the author.]

Originally posted on December 18, 2015 [before David Lowery’s class action against Spotify]

Two months ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article reporting that Spotify had failed to pay a significant amount of royalties due to the music publishing company associated with Victory Records. 1 Rather than make nice with Victory Records’ publishing arm, Spotify responded by pulling Victory’s catalog off the music streaming service. 2

This was immediately followed by several articles by David Lowery, (a songwriter for the indie bands Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven)…

Despite the singular lack of successful legislation in the U.S. Congress (or much of anywhere else for that matter), the news was not all bad this year.  Not by a long shot.  The good news has a common theme for the most part: Artists, a taste making radio programmer and in one case a publisher breaking away from the pack and standing up for their rights and their human dignity.  For the most part, artists said there’s something bigger than just my rights or my income at stake and we will be silenced no longer.  These were superstars and middle class artists alike, sometimes singly and sometimes in the movement (#irespectmusic), but always with a unique voice.

Because the legislative route is blocked off by the likes of Google, Pandora and the MIC Coalition, and because the Federal Trade Commission (that shining bureaucracy on a hill and a beacon of…

This post is the second of a two part interview with Blake Morgan and David Lowery about the newly announced webcasting rates as determined by the Copyright Royalty Board.

MTP: How do you feel about the CRB decision in general as far as rates go?  

Well it’s a mixed bag.  Leans bad.  The rates went up marginally for Pandora, and that seems to be the lead in the press.  But it looks like rates went down for other webcasters.  You saw Pandora stock popped on the CRB news?   Sometimes markets tell you what no one dares say.  The markets are saying that this is good for webcasters and bad for artists.  Of course you won’t see that in the tech or music business press.  [Billboard posted one story on the wave of negative reactions at press time after David’s interview.]

MTP: Was this more of a…