Music Industry Wants Royalties From iTunes and other online music stores' 30 Second SAMPLES

[onehandle]

Dear music industry: go fuck yourself.

Music royalty groups ASCAP and BMI are harassing online music stores such as iTunes to pay performance fees not only for the songs that they sell, but for the short clips that they use as previews. You know, the things that entice people to pay for music. They want to be paid for advertisements for their product.

Just how backwards is this industry? How many years can they continue to just not get it in such an extreme way? You would have thought that maybe it would have taken a few years for them to figure out the internet, but we're way beyond that. This entire industry seems to be run by people who don't just not understand the internet, but are aggressive about not understanding the internet. They have their old way of doing business and the old way the world works, and they'll be damned if any new fangled thing like a complete upheaval in the way people acquire and listen to music is going to change that.

more...

http://gizmodo.com/5361697/music-industry-wants-royalties-from-itunes-30-second-samples

Original source:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/09/17/ascap.others.want.online.performance.fees/
_________________________

I don't 'steal' music, but do this fuckos and I will.

Samples sell music. What? Should I use my psychic powers to choose the music I want to buy?

[Gman2]

1. They continue to cut their throats. Goody.

[Mrs. Overall]

2. Because of those samples, I often purchase the entire song. Duh!

How ridiculous and greedy.

[imdjh]

16. Not to mention when you buy it twice, because it was a "live" version with a bunch of noise on it.

I hate that. Sometimes they don't tell you when it's a "live" version, and you download it only to find out there is a bunch of talk, clapping, wolf whistles, and other crap on it.

[Mrs. Overall]

23. Yes. Also, I've bought several songs twice for my "retro martini mix" playlist when re-mastered

digital versions become available.

[treestar]

34. ITA, never understood the appeal of those recordings

[csziggy]

3. I'd bet that a court will never agree to this - think about the "four paragraph" rule

For quoting articles. A 30 second sample should be considered the same way.

Since the RIAA started this crap, my music purchases have dropped nearly to zero and I don't even listen to much music other than clips posted on YouTube. The last CD I bought was locally produced by a musician I know personally. I think I will keep it that way and continue to ignore the big name stars that the RIAA makes their bucks from.

[Vinnie From Indy]

4. First they come for your samples

then they will come for your humming a few bars in your shower. Dumbasses!

[gratuitous]

10. Uh oh

I was singing some stuff on my ride in to work today. I hope there weren't any record company executives among all those slugs on the bike path. I could be in big trouble.

[Occulus]

21. The really sick part is, if they *could* get away with that, they would.

Case in point: a couple years ago, the EU version of the RIAA sued an auto mechanic. The reason?

An employee's stereo was running a CD within hearing of the customers, and was thus considered a "public performance".

I have little doubt they could get away with that here as well.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

39. "Hum a few bars and I'll fake it."

What's the fee for faking (besides a demoralized boyfriend)?

[Brickbat]

5. How is this different from listening to an album in a record store in the listening booth...remember

those?

[elocs]

31. Now that does take me back a bit--going to the record store to listen to the newest 45.

I'd reckon kids today are clueless as to what a 45 is.

[leeroysphitz]

6. They'll be gone soon.

No matter how hard you squeeze you can't compete with "free".

[wolfgangmo]

7. At this point nothing the music industry does to shoot itself in the foot ...

... surprises me. They haven't done anything worth doing for longer than I can remember.

Luckily there is a huge counter culture building up that competely disregards their deistribution and production system. And that's a good thing. I like iTunes and I love just finding stuff in clubs and online.

I look at it this way. Any industry that would produce something like Britney Spears doesn't understand music at all and I want nothing to do with them.

[BoneDaddy]

8. What a bunch of greedy

people

[imdjh]

9. Fuck these people. The joy of being 50 is that I have enough music to last me a lifetime.

I have paid for this music three times: vinyl, tape, CD, and/or MP3.

So fuck you Madonna, CSNY, Pink Floyd, Donna Summer, and the estates of any of the drugged out dead losers I still listen to for God only knows what reason. (names chosen at random, these names are not trademarked by imdjhim his heir assigns or employees. These names were used for demonstration purposes only and in no way reflect on the actual or imagined positions of living or dead pop stars.)

[KansDem]

15. I agree...

We've been paying for the packaging, not the product.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

11. +1000

Frankly, though, I think the samples are usually WAY too short, particularly if I'm not sure about the song title and the segment of the song that they provide as a sample might not be the part I happen to remember. I personally think that samples should be more like 1 minute at least.

[imdjh]

14. Does a real person choose the sample? It's often useless, or the same for several artists.

Some of the songs I look for have been recorded by several people, but each noticeably different in arrangement. And yet, the same is the same for three different artists. The other problem is when the sample is a vamp or instrumental and you can't tell if it's the right one.

[tabbycat31]

17. agreed

I listen to the samples there. Often I hear a song, and don't remember the title. The samples quickly tell me if the song I'm listening to is the correct sogn.

[musiclawyer]

12. I have songs on itunes and I don't want to be paid for a clip

It undermines the whole point of the clips, and will make the third party vendors such as itunes simply pass along the costs to the artists, which is especially harmful to small indie artists.

[tridim]

13. I'm sure Lars is fully on board with this.

[targetpractice]

18. Like the health insurance companies...

Traditional music companies are proving to be an unnecessary and expensive bureaucratic layer between artists and consumers.

[cascadiance]

19. Perhaps they should use 15 second samples instead...

And if the industry tries to go after them for that for royalties, countersue them back and say that artists are able to use samples this size ( I think it is 15 seconds ) to use in other music they record with no royalty obligations to themselves. If the music industry wants royalties for 15 second samples, then arguably it might suddenly make a whole segment of today's musical recordings immediately illegal, since a lot of those remixes, dubs, etc. have those other recordings embedded in their music.

Itunes and these other entities can claim that the music industry isn't being even handed in their copyright laws if they don't charge artists for using these samples too. I'm sure that that's a can of worm that these distributors won't want to touch, so perhaps that would be a good way to say LAY OFF of us already!

Used to work in one of those download outlets that since got bought out, etc. I know there's not a lot of margins in selling those songs anyway, and a lot of added costs, etc. when you have technical issues with tracks, etc. and how these outfits handle recompensing buyers for these problems without taking too much of a hit financially.

Though also arguably 15 seconds really isn't enough in many cases for people to get a sense of what they'd buy, and perhaps instead, Itunes and other download outfits could warn the industry what they intend to do if they proceed with this action, and therefore perhaps get them to back off now and keep the 30 second sample setup the way it is and avoid costs for everyone.

[Jkid]

20. They can go fuck themselves

They just want more profit.

[whatchamacallit]

22. Un-fucking-believable!

I guess extortion is what you do when your biz model is outmoded. Last gasps of a dying dinosaur...

[Nikki Stone1]

24. "They want to be paid for advertisements for their product."

Good GOD!

[TxRider]

37. They should be charged for advertising their product..

[earth mom]

25. You Tube is next no doubt. Warner Music Group has already clamped down on their music on YT

and it's next to impossible to watch any videos from Warner music which totally sucks.

I look at You Tube as a modern do it yourself version of MTV and it pisses me off when I make a playlist only to find that some of the songs have been removed. :argh: :grr: :mad:

God damn greedy bastards!

Check this rant out-I don't know this guy, but it's a great rant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hla7KMY8OFA

[ikri]

26. They're worried

And with good reason.

The usage information from Spotify (free music streaming service in the UK with a massive catalogue) shows that people aren't that interested in the latest greatest teen idol. Sure they get played but users are rediscovering music that they listened to years ago rather than listening to whatever pap the labels are promoting today.

[Sebastian Doyle]

27. Well, that's the labels own fault for signing (mostly) untalented shit this entire decade.

Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears should have been long forgotten by now, like every fucking bubblegum teen idol that preceeded them in the past. Was Shaun Cassidy still making records 10 years after his peak? Were the Bay City Rollers? Hell, they even played their own instruments. Not very well, but at least they played them.

Just as is the case with radio, and TV news, corporate consolidation has destroyed the music industry, and this RIAA lunatic fascism is the final nail in the coffin.

[ikri]

30. Yup

For every 100 new acts that the labels are promoting today, 99 of them will have been forgotten in 10 years time.

Simon Cowell summed up the state of the modern music industry recently when he stated that he wouldn't have signed The Beatles

[Sebastian Doyle]

32. A lot of labels didn't, believe it or not.

I'll be the guy who turned them down at Decca felt especially stupid. That's why they had to make sure they got the Stones. They were actually on their second audition at EMI, and it came by accident. Brian Epstein wanted to transfer the demo tape to acetate so it would be easier to carry around to all the labels and be rejected by them (as most of the labels in London already had. George Martin was "producing" the tape transfer, and liked what he heard, and the rest is history.

I'll bet Simon Cowell wouldn't have signed Dylan either. Or Bruce Springsteen. Or Johnny Cash. Or Willie Nelson. Or Tom Petty. Or Led Zeppelin. Ac/Dc would have never passed the audition. The Clash or The Ramones would have never been allowed IN the audition.

He might have signed Freddie Mercury, but only if he was singing opera or something. Definitely not with Queen.

[misanthrope]

35. Simon Cowell is a prime example of what's wrong with the music industry**nm

**

[Rude Dog]

28. They know...

...that their business model is a failure, so they need whatever life support they can dream up.

[KatyaR]

29. Jeezbus, what a crock of crap.

These guys are as bad as the health insurance industry. Pretty soon it'll get to the point where we have to pay a fee for THINKING of a song . . . .

[GreenPartyVoter]

33. That's like telling a TV station to pay them for airing their commercials.

:wtf: Bullet, meet foot.

[TxRider]

36. Itunes should charge them for advertising of their product.. ;)

[winyanstaz]

38. This is the same industry that stole my bands music and sold it and gave it away for free....

all over the internet world wide.
They also allowed the company we had signed with to use our music as their free advertizements and they then gave our music away to every free music site on the planet....and we never saw so much as a single penny.
Fuck them all, yahoo music, jbird records and all the rest of them all to hell.
Time for all of us musicians to stop using the music companies at all and just put our music out ourselves, directly to the public via the www.

[Dr Fate]

40. This is why I buy nothing but used records.

Sick of ASCAP & BMI killing local music & bands that are not well known. I refuse to fund them anymore.