RIAA sticks it to writers
Protection racket
THE RIAA has long held that its court actions against P2P pirates were all about protecting the creative work of musicians and song writers.
However its agenda became fairly obvious yesterday when the record labels within the RIAA all agreed with Yahoo, Apple and Napster to lower royalties to songwriters.
Its argument is that music studios have suffered much from the switch to traditional records to digital media and they need the extra money. It should be songwriters who pay for the expensive court cases and the losses sustained.
The debate is about the "mechanical royalty", which are payments made for copies of sound recordings and music.
The RIAA wants the Copyright Royalty Board to reduce the rate to eight per cent of wholesale revenue. Currently the cash to be split between publisher and songwriter is about nine cents per song, according to the Hollywood Reporter. µ
Comments
What the hell!
I'm not surprised the RIAA would consider such a thing, but for Yahoo, Apple and Napster to push for it? Those arisholes.Are you kidding me?
"protecting the creative work of musicians and song writers."Well I can see that clearly now and in doing so why not steal from them? They aready make peanuts why not take another 8% just because...no really they won't miss it.
Its all for you!
I do not see why is everyone surprised. It is well known amongst artists that they are mostly used and underpaid for their talents. Only the biggest names or those that own their own labels actually make the big dosh.The RIAA does not represent artists, it represents wealthy businesses. As such the new business models presented by downloadable content prenset new hurdles. The fact is that they no longer command the same profit margins with a per song sale. The solution? sell the song for less, increase their share of the profit, and like magic, revenue is back to the good old days.
If you were the RIAA would you try to decrease your representatives profits??
It is just sound financial planning. Not like anyone can do anything about it.
What will the future hold for artists?
Not much if you are counting on the RIAA.
Piracy
Who did you think was going to suffer from piracy in the end? Do you expect record companies to pay for an album and give it away for free? How ridiculous.It seems like some people have this fantasy where they will magically get music for free and the artists will somehow all be compensated for their hard work. I just don't get the logic.
Typical RIAA....
Now I am even less encouraged to buy RIAA product. Don;t they get it? We consumers WANT the money in the songwriter/band's hands, and not in the hands of a bunch of leeches who brought NOTHING to the creative process.Devil you know...
... versus the devil you don't know. The artists making a mint on the current model know how to get their checks delivered - they've probably lost touch with reality so badly that they fear the new music technology as much as RIAA. Those are the artists RIAA represents - the landed.It looks like if the industry doesn't get down off their high, there will be a whole new music renaissance of people crafting music for the sheer joy of it. Mainly because the embedded industry is making it impossible for anyone new to earn a proper living off the art.
I'm kinda looking forward to losing all the whiners.
Record Companies need that 92%
Record companies need that 92%, after all, they've got to maintain those factories manufacturing the... Digital recordings you say? Oh, well then, they've got to do all the producing and whatnot... Oh, they charge the artisit for that?Well, I'm sure promoting the record is 92% of the work and actually writing and performaing is a good solid 8%.
It could not be possible that since online music sales involve less work, less manufacturing investment, less inventory overhead, less risk and pretty much less everything from the record compay that maybe reduced revenues are warranted?
Whoa, wait a second. let me get this straight
The RIAA is saying that they need to cut the royalties to songwriters, why? I mean, seriously, why? They are still selling music at roughly the same cost as when they sell an actual CD with packaging, retailer margins, distribution costs, advertising and what not. Yet with the downloads there are zero manufacturing and distribution costs, so the gross margin on digital downloads has to be an order of magnitude higher than it is for actual CDs.Now, someone please explain why increasing the profit margin on sales requires a reduction in royalties paid to the people actually creating the art being sold?
I won't hold my breath for anyone from the RIAA attempting an explanation, I'm sure that they will be too busy inventing more ways to tick off both customer and artist.
Long Live the Pirates...
Fuck the Jews and their music....Kings Yahoo, Apple & Napster, levy tax on songwriters
It seems the taxation without representation was made at the bequest of colonial record labels to offset the cost of sending the RIAA (IRA?-A?) to war against P2P pirates. Seems the authors' front men were in reality, poser girls or back door men, and they are now in cahoots with the kings men to do dirty deeds done authors dirt cheap.Ouch. First you lose in chiefly someone else's war, then you have to pay for it as well... Where have I heard of this? Another W conspiracy? Capitalism?
This is ridiculous!
So, moving to the digital distribution system saves the record labels money by not requiring them to actually cut a CD, print the label on it and the jacket, distribute it through the normal channels, and only get a wholesale rate for their efforts. Instead, they pack it with DRM, rip it to either mp3 or AIFF, and let someone like Apple or Amazone distribute it through the internet, and yet they get about the same amount of money out of it. On top of that, knowing you are going to rip music to CD's, they get a royalty for every CD-R sold. So now they want to fatten their margins by ripping off the actual writers and performers of the music? Someone has to take a stand and put a stop to RIAA. They're out of control... No wonder pirating is the way it is...Dear RIAA: Your music sales are in a slump because the music you record sucks! Gone are the days of bands like Led Zeppelin and The Who because the record companies demand too much control and would rather put someone pretty up their singing than actually talented groups like The Rolling Stones, who don't look so photogenic. This is why the whole industry is down the crapper and why Classic Rock still sells well. I doubt anyone will be buying Justin Timberlake in 20+ years.
best move for RIAA
Actually, I think that's the best possible move for the RIAA. By driving a bigger wedge between the old industry and new/emerging artists, those new talents will looks less and less at distributing through those old channels and more into finding innovative (god I feel so dirty useing that word) and new channels to publish their music. What it means is the RIAA is building the coffin for the old guard music industry one nail at a time.I would encourage them to to cut it even more myself.
-J
WTF! And another thing..
"posted by : jeremy, 11 February 2008"How the hell did Jeremy post from 5 days in the future?!?! Read the sign, "NO Time machines allowed!!!"
In other recent news, there was a flurry of protest over the fact that artists weren't seeing payments from the record companies related to monies taken in from the RIAA suits.
Main point- The records companies didn't know how to break out the money equally among the artists as they didn't know who was actually pirated compared to another...go figure!
I don't know how artists think they'll get income from downloads where the monies are first filtered by crooks, racketeers and thugs.