The audit clause in Pandora’s new publishing license takes a sharp turn away from their positions in Web IV which not only is great news for songwriters and publishers, but also gives artists and sound recording owners a strong benchmark for the appeal of Web IV. via Pandora Sees the Light On Audit Rights — Music Tech […]
via Pandora Sees the Light On Audit Rights — Music Tech Solutions — MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY
This is a screenshot form earlier today. YouTube hosts dozens of videos like these advertising the illegal sale of the Prince killing drug Fentanyl. Mississippi Attorney General Hood is right on YouTube: They continue to enable advertising for illegal drug trafficking.
Just saw this on MTP:
Google Facilitates the Sale of the Drug that Killed Prince
Songwriters and performers have a legal rights to choose with whom they do business. If I don’t like Coors I don’t have to license my music for their commercials. If I you don’t like the particular views of a political candidate you don’t have to let them use your music.
Well, what about a company that hosts advertisements for illegal sales of drugs, hate rock videos, terrorist recruitment videos and thousands of other abominations. Artists don’t want to support a business like this do they?
Well, because YouTube abuses the DMCA takedown process, and interprets it as a game of “Whack-a-mole” there is no practical way to keep your music off of YouTube. We are forced to go into business with a deeply amoral company?
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We have carefully documented over the years all the nasty crap Google/YouTube hosts:
https://thetrichordist.com/2014/11/17/do-you-want-your-music-alongside-hate-rock-videos/
https://thetrichordist.com/2015/07/16/advertisers-how-is-youtube-any-different-than-reddit/
https://thetrichordist.com/2014/04/15/youtube-still-serving-ads-on-hate-rock-videos/
Other news outlets have reported on YouTube hosting ISIS and Jihadi recruitment videos and serving advertising.
http://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/political-ads-youtube-videos-isis-scams-drugs-report/story?id=38041543
http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/03/technology/isis-ads-youtube/
We have also questioned the ethics of participating in YouTube hosted events like YouTube Music Awards.
A big Silicon Valley company and their big Silicon Valley law firm are suing independent photographer Kalliope Amorphous for having the temerity to tell them to stop stealing her photographs.
SoundExchange is appealing the “Web IV” decision by the Copyright Royalty Board. The Web IV decision handed a huge victory to Pandora and iHeart Media by manipulating contract terms into industry-wide rates while ignoring the payola terms of those contracts. Then the Copyright Royalty Board froze artist royalties at those absurd rates for five years.
via @SoundExchange to Appeal Web IV Ruling — Artist Rights Watch
And who works for the Chairman of the F.C.C.? Counselor to the Chairman, Federal Communications Commission: Gigi Sohn, formerly CEO of Google Shill Lister Public Knowledge. Special Assistant to Chairman, Federal Communications Commission: Sagar Doshi (Google Product Specialist) THE cable set-top box — a clunky technology from a bygone era that costs many consumers around […]
via Jonathan Kanter: Don’t Hand Our TVs Over to Google — Artist Rights Watch
A thoughtful response to David Pakman (call sign “One Trick Pony”) by Jim McDermott. David’s post is “The Music Industry Buried More Than 150 Startups” which is something of a summary of David’s various public statements and Congressional testimony over the last 10 years or so. David you’re one of the smartest guys on the block, and […]
Last night I posted this
It has since gone viral. It has also produced a remarkable display of ignorance on the part of many defending Spotify.
Not to single out this one person but it illustrates how little tech types know about the compulsory licenses and government set pricing schemes that subsidize these platforms.
Nice. A little classic brogrammer master-of-the-universe arrogance thrown in. I guess those songs just magically appear on those platforms.
Except that there is no supply and demand for songs. In order to “spur innovation” the federal government provided a compulsory license that allows streaming services to use our songs at a below market rate fixed by the Copyright Royalty Board. You can’t even get your songs off these services. Well that’s not always true. If you threaten to file a class action lawsuit for failing to pay the already abysmal royalty rate (among other things) then they will take your songs off the service. See below:
Amidst Serious Accusations, Spotify Removes Victory Records’ Catalog
But the ignorance continues.
ALL the platforms mentioned, MTV, Radio and Labels also enjoy either a federal compulsory license or below market rates set by a single federal judge (see ASCAP/BMI rate court). Songwriters are forced by the federal government to subsidize all of these platforms since 1909, when the federal government mandated songwriters license their songs for mechanical reproduction at 2 cents a copy to “spur innovation” of record labels and player piano rolls.
Every one of these supposedly “innovative” platforms is essentially suckling at the breast of the federal government.
So lets have a poll
Thank You Songwriters Of North America (SONA)
Spotify just posted their financials and Paul Resnikoff at Digital Music News was quick to point out that the average Spotify employee salary is $168, 747.
Contrast that to the plight of songwriters. There would be no music business without the fundamental efforts of songwriters. Yet, there is not a free market in songs. The federal government sets compensation for songwriters/publishers based on a percentage of revenue. An abysmal below market rate. In effect a subsidy for streaming services. Last I checked this rate was working out to about $0.00058 per spin. This includes both the public performance (BMI/ASCAP) and the streaming mechanical (IF they happen to pay it).
Best case scenario, if a songwriter retains all publishing rights to their song then a songwriter would need 288,104,634.15 spins to earn the reported average salary of a Spotify employee.
Any questions?
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Related see this post on failure of techies to understand that streaming services are subsidized by government mandates
Clueless Spotify Defender Illustrates Tech Ignorance about Federal Cap On Songwriter Pay
If you followed the Copyright Office request for public comments on the DMCA “notice and takedown” safe harbors, you will probably be aware of reports that a group called Fight for the Future generated 86,000 comments to the Copyright Office in approximately 36 hours. I will give even money that it will turn out that investigation will reveal that most of those comments were fake. One reason I’d make that bet is because they look fake. Many were anonymous or pseudonymous and there’s really no way to know who or what submitted those comments. And that’s why there’s a question about whether this kind of public comments can be used at all for policy making.
The Trichordist 
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