Politics Musicians Score Win in Webcasting Debate
posted by on August 24 at 13:12 PM
Indie musicians forced SoundExchange (the group that collects fees from Internet radio stations) to live up to its claim that it represents artists.
Here’s the deal: During negotiations yesterday between SoundExchange and webcasters over the fees that webcasters must pay labels and musicians, the musicians—who find themselves stuck between SoundExchange and the webcasters—secured a win.
At the meeting in New York, SoundExchange and DiMA (Digital Media Association, the lobbying group for webcasters) agreed that any final plan on payments will include a 24/7 census of all the songs played on the web, so that an accurate accounting exists. The list will be made available to a designee other than SoundExchange (although they’ll get it too.)
This will guarantee fair payment to indie musicians. Indeed, while SoundExchange had used indie musicians as a point of propaganda in their demands for bigger fees from webcasters, musicians often came out against SoundExchange, arguing that they weren’t getting paid. Yesterday, musicians forced SoundExchange to live up to its boasts.
Both SoundExchange and DiMa claim artists as a poster child. Webcasters say they give small artists needed publicity—and if SoundExchange fees get too high, indie webcasting will go away. SoundExchange says its fees direct deserved payment to musicians. Now, it seems, SoundExchange will be held accountable to that claim.
UPDATE
ars technica has a report on other aspects of the deal, including the status of DRM and streamripping.
Yesss!!!
I was actually going to comment on this very topic on yesterday's post, but then didn't. I know I've had some (if minimal) play on various Internet media, but my name is not in their database. So glad this will be corrected.
The RIAA likes to make similar claims about protecting artists, which is pretty hilarious if you examine who they represent.
I agree with Mr. Levislade that this is a good thing, although it will be interesting to see how it plays out in practice. I still haven't figured out how independent artists wiil get paid by this system, or what it intends to do about Creative Commons licenses or similar arrangements where artists waive certain claims to revenue because they want their music to be more widely distributed.
Wait... so until just now, the indie artists weren't getting paid? Why were you arguing beforehand that they were?
@3 - Some artists were getting paid, but it wasn't based on complete, 24-hour playlists (because that would be so hard in this day and age). I believe that, like radio, it was based on random samples extrapolated out, so that people that only got played here (smaller indies) got the shaft.
I can't see how any system could possibly encompass more than a tiny fraction of all music plays, or possibly be enforced. The RIAA likes to send letters to restaurants that play music over the PA, demanding money, but what are they going to do about things like last.fm, or any of the zillion blogs out there?
Why isn't this on Lineout?
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