This is the sound of the other shoe dropping:
The RIAA, under it's subsidiary SoundExchange, has now claimed the authority to collect royalties for musician's who don't have agreements with it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/24/141326/870I'm "really" not a lawyer by any stretch but couldn't this be racketeering as defined by the RICO Act? So we should also suggest to the Department of Justice that they might have to investigate the RIAA to see if it violates the RICO Act with this gobbledegook. I wonder how Chris, or anyone else who is a musician. feels about this?
Hey, Chris . . .Since you asked:
Well, it's basically bull...., that's what I think about it. Internet radio gives us "Indies" all a chance to be heard on stations we would not even have access to otherwise. Of all the "on-air" radio stations in Vermont, I can be heard only on one commercial station, and that would only be on their Sunday morning show from 6-10 A.M. All the other stations are either college radio, or Public radio, of which I might be played bewteen 2-5 P.M. on Sundays only.
That the RIAA has claimed the authority to collect royalties for musicians who don't have agreements with it is ludicrous, and lunacy, in my view. And making internet radio pay a higher rate than broadcast? What's up with that? I really don't think it's either legal or ethical for the RIAA to do either of those things. First of all, where's the royalty money going to go? Into a pool to be claimed later by an artist at a later date? How many hoops do you think someone like me would have to go through to collect a couple of bucks? And in many cases, I'm sure the fee imposed to register would be in excess of the royalty collected. This smacks of some very sticky, tricky lobbying from somewhere deep in the bowels of the music industry. It reeks and stinks, literally and figuratively. And why would an indie artist want to pay a fee to the RIAA to collect what would probably be less money for the royalties for many artists would actually earn???
Perhaps what's going on here is even more insidious, in that some folks in the "industry" would seem trying to put Internet Radio out of business. It's an obscene grab for a piece of the royalty pie that is presently split up BMI, ASCAP, etc. There must be some interesting closed-door collaborating going on behind the scenes here with the commercial radio industry... not like anything like that has ever happened before
When I record someone's song, I pay a licensing fee if my CD is commercially duplicated. So, I already paid the royalty to the songwriter. But, if I have also copyrighted my arrangement of my performance of that tune, then I can get paid fractions of a penny for each of the times it might actually get played.
Radio stations pay a yearly set fee for royalties. If your song isn't copyrighted through BMI, ASAP, etc., you don't get any money. The royalties, after administration fees, get distributed through a percentage pool determined by the actual # of times a song gets played. But really, the only advantage to being registered is if you are actually being distributed nationally and played regularly on some form of commercial or internet radio.
My last check from a song I own and is registered through BMI was for 13 cents.
I am going to frame it, eventually.
So that's what I think, gunug! And I think you may have a point... let's add Conspiracy to those charges as well!
I'm definitely calling my congressman and sending a letter.
Chris K
