Van Dyke Parks on How Songwriters Are Getting Screwed in the Digital Age | The Daily Beast

Forty years ago, co-writing a song with Ringo Starr would have provided me a house and a pool. Now, estimating 100,000 plays on Spotify, we guessed we’d split about $80. When I got home, on closer study, I found out we were way too optimistic. Spotify (on par with other streamers) pays only .00065 cents per play.

There’s less support for all the arts today, and the blade gets duller with every cut in arts funding. It degrades dance, opera, even academia and, significantly, the art of journalism. As a result, in the U.S., public opinion suffers from what we call “infotainment.” That’s a genre of media news that is not informing, entertaining, or remedial. And it’s a direct result of a vacuum of patronage (and by patronage, I don’t mean just Medici-style sponsorship but the willingness of all arts consumers to pay for what they listen to, read, and watch, and for the industry to fairly recompense creators).

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE DAILY BEAST:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/04/van-dyke-parks-on-how-songwriters-are-getting-screwed-in-the-digital-age.html

by Trichordist Editor

T Bone Burnett’s plea: The piper must be paid| LA Times

Fans can still hear the work of America’s musical pioneers, thanks to online and mobile services. Through downloads and streams and services such as Pandora and Sirius XM Radio, these giants’ recordings continue to captivate and influence young musicians, singers, songwriters and producers.

Yet some of these same companies have made the decision to devalue the music of these artists for their own profit by not paying for it. In doing this, they devalue the substance of their own medium. For the last 20 years we’ve witnessed an assault on the arts by the technology community — especially when it comes to music.

This devaluation is troubling because music is not only the creation of people who make this art for us; it is how they earn a living. Music is how they feed their kids and provide for their futures.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE LA TIMES:
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80409552/

by Trichordist Editor

YouTube Bullying Tactics Results in Indie Labels Taking Fight to Brussels and UK Government

Music Technology Policy

MTP readers will recall YouTube’s bully boy tactics against indie labels–threatening to cut off indie label access to Google’s YouTube monopoly if the labels didn’t take the hillbilly deal for a new Google music streaming service.

The indies have aligned with the Featured Artist Coalition (can the publishers be far behind?) and are launching complaints with the UK government soon to be followed by a formal complaint with the European Union Competition Commission in Brussels.  This is not a good look for Google as Google has been trying to thimblerig their way into a settlement with the EC Competition Commission for several years to avoid significant penalties in the billions of dollars.  That settlement is predicated on Google being misunderstood little kiddies who just love unicorns and Birkenstocks.

Already failing with a broad coalition of consumer groups in Europe, other EC officials and elected representatives, Google’s hoped for settlement is…

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by trichordist

No, Silly, Piracy is Theft | DevTopics

A classic, with illustrations.

A much better analogy for digital piracy is sneaking into a theater to watch a movie.  You are not stealing a copy of that movie, and the theater is free to show the movie to others.  But you are stealing revenue that the theater would have earned had you rightfully purchased a ticket.

So when you pirate music, video or software, you are stealing income from the seller.  You are receiving something of value without paying for it.

READ THE FULL POST AT DEVTOPICS:
http://www.devtopics.com/no-silly-piracy-is-theft/

by Trichordist Editor

Thank you Pandora: DOJ to Review ASCAP and BMI Consent Decrees #irespectmusic

Music Technology Policy

Score one for the songwriters.

After the travesty of the Pandora rate court decision, a lot of people (including MTP) have been banging the drum about the unfairness of the ASCAP and BMI rate courts.  Nowhere has the Kafka-esque absurdity of the rate courts been more prominently on display than in Pandora’s recent lawsuit against ASCAP songwriters.

But however much Pandora has galvanized the creative community in a united response against greedy, entitled Silicon Valley overreach, the first step in correcting this festering wrong is for the PROs to convince the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to review the 70 year old consent decrees which haven’t been reviewed since 2001 in the case of ASCAP–a year before Napster entered bankruptcy–and 1994 for BMI, a year before the Congress recognized a performance right in sound recordings.

Thankfully, the DOJ is reconsidering fundamental reform of the rate court process

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by Chris Castle

File sharing is alive and well, to the tune of 300 million users a month | GigOm

Surprise: P2P isn’t dead, after all. 300 million users swap files via BitTorrent every month, according to new numbers from media intelligence startup Tru Optik, which estimates that every month, more movies and TV shows get downloaded by file sharers than are sold on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon together.

And we’re not just talking about users in countries where media would otherwise be inaccessible. Users in the U.S. download more movies, TV shows, music and software than any other country, according to Tru Optik. The only exception to this rule is video games, where users in Brazil are more active than their U.S. counterparts.

READ THE FULL STORY AT GIGAOM:
http://gigaom.com/2014/05/28/file-sharing-is-alive-and-well-to-the-tune-of-300-million-users-a-month/

by Trichordist Editor

Music Piracy Is and Should Remain Illegal | NoisePorn

The problem is not that the music industry is refusing to change with technology and culture. In fact, I find it spooky that the notion of revamping the system to pander to those engaging in criminal activity is even being uttered. The problem is that we’ve become a society that excuses douchebaggery as a sign of the times; an “everybody’s doing it so, whatever” phenomenon. And, instead of enforcing logical rules (i.e. prosecuting the wrongdoers), we justify the despicable and conjure up excuses for their behavior. Maybe they weren’t hugged enough as children. Or maybe the music industry is being unfair by trying to profit from what some think should be free and accessible to everyone. We then, as if stricken with Stockholm Syndrome, develop a completely warped sense of empathy toward the culprits; bending the fist of justice until the finger of blame points back at the industry and its still bleeding wounds.

READ THE FULL STORY AT NOISE PORN:
http://www.noiseporn.com/2014/05/music-piracy-remain-illegal/

by Trichordist Editor

RESPECT Act: SoundExchange Takes Steps to Protect Artists from Sirius XM and Pandora

Essential Reading from Music Tech Policy.

Music Technology Policy

We’ve seen quite a bit of “new boss” activity this week:  Google screwing indie labels, Amazon screwing authors and now yet another missed opportunity for Sirius and Pandora to demonstrate that they care about the artists who deliver them riches.  Yes, it’s that old and unimproved digital radio, now with even more exploitation.  Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss.

This time, however, Sirius and Pandora are behaving so badly that it requires passing new legislation just to get their noses up to the fair compensation line.  SoundExchange is taking steps to protect “legacy” artists from the most recent attack on artist royalties from Sirius XM and Pandora. Why?  Because Pandora and Sirius want to use recordings from pre-1972 without respecting the artists enough to pay them royalties, not to mention getting a license.

And pre-72 recordings are…well, how to say it?  The entire legacy of contemporary music…

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by trichordist

Merlin on YouTube music payouts: ‘Their figures are by far the worst’ | Music Ally

“The ironic thing is that the service that pays the least is the service that’s the most well funded and run by the biggest company in the world: their figures are by far the worst, whether you measure them on a per-stream basis or a per-user basis. I tend to get myself in trouble when I talk about that company…”

Hence his desire not to name them directly, but quote instead from an interview with Billy Bragg conducted by Music Ally earlier this year. “If we’re pissed off at Spotify, we should be marching to YouTube central with flaming pitchforks,” said Bragg – Caldas read this quote out before delivering his own pointed follow-up. “I can’t say Billy’s right, but I can say that he’s not wrong,” said Caldas.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT MUSIC ALLY:
http://musically.com/2014/04/30/merlin-youtube-music-payouts-charles-caldas/

RELATED:

What YouTube Really Pays… Makes Spotify Look Good!

Streaming Price Index : Now with YouTube pay rates!

by trichordist