music_news 91 posts

Music publishing companies representing Eminem filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Apple on grounds of copyright infringement. Allegedly the iTunes store have been offering Eminem’s songs for download without his permission, only having the consent of the EMI record label. According to the singer’s lawyers, the record label doesn’t hold the right to allow downloads exclusively (as it is with selling the artist’s CDs). Also the singer wants a fairer division of the revenue from downloads. At the moment iTunes charges around 99 cents a song, 70 cents go to the record label. It, in turn, typically, pays 9,1 cents to the music publisher.

According to the artist’s lawyer the issue “is how the 60.9 cents the recording label has left after it pays the music publisher should be divided between the recording label and the artist. If downloads are treated as licensing agreements, the 60.9 cents would be split equally, he said. But if a download is treated as a sale, which is typical, the artist only gets a royalty, or a much smaller share... read more