07/10/2009

Joe Biden in Bed With The RIAA?

Category litigation politics the future
OK, maybe that title was a bit inflamatory and meant to draw attention. But there are a lot of goings on that make it seem that way. A lot of things were brought up in an article on Tiny Mix Tapes that make you say "Hmmmmmmmm...". Take, for instance, one of his first moves as Vice President in his DoJ appointments. Five lawyers, all from the same firm, and all representing the RIAA in the past ten years. Talk about a conflict of interest! Is it any question how copyright cases will be going these next few years. There is already evidence on how it will go. In a case vs. Joel Tenenbaum, the RIAA sought files of $150,000 per track - outrageous by any normal person's standards. But when this fact was brought to the DoJ they allowed it and the outrageous fines preceeded.

Something else that doesn't bode well is Biden's apparent lack of knowledge about technology - definitely in stark contrast to the Blackberry toting, Facebook using President Obama. In the beginning of his service, he conducted an interview on CBS's Early Show. He failed to really give that good of an explaination about a website for the recovery stimulus bill. He also couldn't give any instruction on its use and ever referred to it as a "website number" at one point.

Some of the bills he has sponsored as a senetor also lead one to believe that we are headed towards a pro-copyright law future. Only time will tell, unfortunately.

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 11:57 PM Location Studio | | Comments (0)

07/06/2009

The Fight to Change The Music Business

Category distribution licensing music the future
With the changing revenue markets for music and other forms of entertainment no one is denying that the rules have changed. Hollywood and the Recording Industry are (finally) starting to realize that the Old Ways no longer apply and they are fighting a losing battle by being overly litigious. Digital media is here to stay so they better find a way to monetize it or they will go the way of the Packard Car. Their current methods include subscription-based services, ad generated revenues and blanket licensing deals. But these are all new ways to fill the coffers of the labels and copyright owners. There isn't much talk of how THEY want to change how they pay the artists and performers.

Enter The Future Of Music Coalition . From their website:

Future of Music Coalition is a national nonprofit education, research and advocacy organization that identifies, examines, interprets and translates the challenging issues at the intersection of music, law, technology and policy. FMC achieves this through continuous interaction with its primary constituency – musicians – and in collaboration with other creator/citizen groups.


The FMC is looking out for musicians they say, and have released a set of principles they say will help ensure musicians and artists receive their due compensation in the changing market place. The labels will not be amused.

The majority of the document says that people need to share and share alike. To pull this off they suggest that artists be able to audit the labels and see all of the revenues in order to keep them on the up and up. One of the ways that the copyright holders (labels in most cases) are making money these days is through blanket deals with sites. They will give them access to the label's entire catalog for a blanket licensing fee. Same with advertising. The argument here is that every digital play, download and purchase can be tracked, so there is no reason that the labels could not see how much revenue per song they are earning. And the artists want their cut just like they get on a CD purchase or DVD sale that is tracked through SoundScan and ASCAP/BMI.

The FMC is also asking that the revenues from the deals be paid directly to the artist and not to the copyright holder who is then responsible for turning around and giving it to the artist in the existing model. The artist can elect to let the labels get the money and then redistribute it to them provided that the third party distributing the money to the label (MySpace, Youtube, Apple, etc) gives the artist a statement so they can be sure they are getting their share accurately.

Another interesting idea they bring up is a 3 year limit to revenues gained by the labels for distribution, packaging, production and promotion costs. There is no denying that the artist DOES need the label in the beginning. Its the label that pays for the studio, everybody's salaries, the promotion, the packaging, the distribution, the writing, etc. So they do deserve a cut. But the newer line of thinking is that after a file is made its done - you don't need to pay a guy to press more CDs, pay a guy to print more jewel case jackets, pay a guy to deliver the CDs to the stores, or pay a guy to stock the shelves. And after 3 years the promotion of the album is pretty much done. So, if the labels are getting paid by the third parties first, they would only be allowed to do so for 3 years after the work is published. After that the artist gets their cut directly.

While the indie scene is becoming more and more popular it is harder for them to complete and get licensing deals with places like Youtube or MySpace. The FMC wants fair play for the indie guy, too. They also want to make sure that payment is equal. If Beyonce gets 30 cents for every 99 cent download then the indie guy should get the same.

This is a big one that I've been yelling about for a long time. Artists should get a piece of the litigation settlements from copyright infringement lawsuits. Right now, the only people who get money back from one of these lawsuits or settlements are the copyright owners (read "labels" for the most part). The person who actually performed the song isn't getting a dime, unless they ARE the copyright holder. That just doesn't seem fair to me. The FMC also wants to extend this to international issues, which to me only makes sense.

There are a few more line items in the document that I won't bring up here - mostly dealing with accounting, auditing and transparency.

In the end, I doubt that many of these will happen soon. I know the FMC will push for all of these to take effect, but in reality I don't see the labels agreeing to much. What I do hope will happen is that this gets the "lets throw as much stuff at the wall and see what sticks" effect. Maybe not all of them will go into play, but maybe a couple will. And this would (and should) be considered a step in the right direction

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 6:02 PM Location Studio | | Comments (0)

05/04/2009

Video of Gerd Leonhard on "The Future Of Music and Media"

Category videos Gerd Leonhard the future
This is a video from the Plugg 2009 Conference, held in Brussles. It's of Gerd Leonhard talking about the future of music and media. Gerd is a "futurist" so he gets paid to study markets and trends and tell comapnies where he thinks things will be in the near future. He brings up some interesting points here

The Future Of Music And Media from Plugg Conference on Vimeo.

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 11:41 PM Location Studio | | Comments (0)