music_news 91 posts

Major record labels once again refused to accept royalty payments from Russian on-line music stores.

IFPI refused to receive money from the Russian royalty collecting entity ROMS (Russian Organization on Collective Management of Rights of Authors and Other Rightholders in Multimedia, Digital Networks & Visual Arts). Although ROMS operates within the law, IFPI insists that the only entity which could act on behalf of the labels and other rightholders and collect royalties is the Russian branch of IFPI (RPA – Russian Phonographic Association) and refuses to accept anything from ROMS.


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Take your dirty Russian money away! Gazeta.ru (In Russian)
Western record companies refused to accept royalty payments for their music from Russian on-line stores, Prime-TASS (In Russian)

Digital music downloads shouldn’t be considered “public performances” and therefore no additional royalties should be paid, the Digital Media Association (DiMA*) advises to federal court counter to claims “by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP**) that digital music downloads are “public performances” and should, therefore, be subject to a public performance license and royalty”. (DiMa)

“ASCAP’s assertion in federal court that digital distributions of music and video are also public performances confounds legal, business and technological reality,” said Jonathan Potter, DiMA’s Executive Director. “For a decade ASCAP and BMI have successfully preyed on less-confident or underfinanced companies that were willing to pay double-dip royalties. Now, however, we are confident that a judge will finally end this travesty… ASCAP and BMI claim that a download or even its “transmission” to a consumer – even if the media file is never opened and made audible... read more

On January 20, some of the leading indie labels and artists launched a new agency which will be responsible for their digital licensing deals. This new organization called Merlin should become the “5th major” representing the growing indie sector which by some estimates accounts for 30% of world music sales.

Merlin’s goal is to improve the "poor cousin" status of deals offered to independent labels and change the "growing assumption that, for emerging media, only the four majors need to be licensed”.

As the Merlin Chief Executive Charles Caldas said in a statement - "The form of copyright apartheid currently being applied to the value of independent rights is unacceptable."

Merlin has already struck its first web distribution deal with Snowcap. This will enable Merlin’s members to sell songs on MySpace, YouTube and alike in the MP3 format.



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Last week in USA RIAA petitioned a panel of federal government copyright judges to change royalty distribution ratio and lower statutory royalty rates so that songwriters would get less and labels would get more.

This road to more equality is paved with good intentions indeed. Last time labels and songwriters negotiated a ratio was 25 years ago. Since then technology and the market have changed considerably. Now labels are loosing money as CD sales decline while songwriter are actually getting more from ringtones and other innovative services.

According to The Hollywood Reporter RIAA's executive vp and general counsel Steven Marks commented that "Mechanical royalties currently are out of whack with historical and international rates…[RIAA] hope[s] the judges will restore the proper balance by reducing the rate and moving to a more flexible percentage rate structure so that record companies can continue to create the sound recordings that drive revenues for music publishers."

Is it that real... read more

Labels try new ways to get the money they believe are getting lost due to piracy and carelessness of consumers. New idea is that it might be easier to tax consumers when they buy an MP3 player rather then hope they will stay away from peering.

News leaked out this week that Universal Music Group tries to negotiate a royalty fee for every iPod sold.

Universal has already succeeded in doing so for Zune players produced by Microsoft. Assumingly the label will receive $1 for every $250 of Zune sales.

Consumers will pay even if they will never listen to Universal’s music on their players. Actually many developed countries do have some kind of copyright levy or a tax on blank media such as CDs or memory devices like MP3 players. Consumers have to pay it even if they are going to use a blank CD to record their own song or home video.


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Universal... read more

Copyright on some popular music performed in 50’s is going to expire in few years. In UK and EU performers and what’s more important producers may benefit from a sound recording for 50 years. (While authors and their families receive royalties for their entire life plus 70 years on).

For example copyright on some recording by Beatles may expire in 2012 in EU. So music industry represented by IFPI, BPI and some musicians advocates for an increase of copyright term from 50 years to 95.

The UK government has taken the issue seriously and commissioned a report to help its decision. However, the study was a huge disappointment for the industry as the paper suggests that the increase is unnecessary. According to The Guardian the demands of music industry might be rejected thereof.

This report will be revealed next week. Nevertheless it already has been criticized by the industry.

CEO of rights societies the PPL and the VPL said that he “sincerely hope[s] this [UK] government will... read more

According to The Guardian Google has set aside $200m. for possible copyright lawsuits that might follow after it acquired YouTube last week. Although it might not be that bad as major labels (Vivendi, Sony BMG and Warner) received a small stake it the company.

Search giant sets aside $200m for YouTube court cases, The Guardian

Universal has recently attacked YouTube and MySpace sites, as Reuters reports, accusing them of infringing copyright as well as owing the industry “tens of millions of dollars” already.
Whether Universal will sue or try to negotiate with the sites is not yet clear. So far the labels want to be paid for the copyrighted material whereas the sites would rather offer content for free but with some amount of advertising.
Possible development of this story is that either the label will change its business model substantially or launch yet another lawsuit against sites offering content.