To try to alleviate some of the strain facing songwriters, three small independent labels – [Justin] Tranter’s Facet Records, The Other Songs and Good Boy Records – have made a new pledge they hope will catch on: giving songwriters a percentage of master royalties— or “points” — on every single record.
“We didn’t feel like the industry was changing fast enough to fix this,” says Billy Webber, co-founder of London-based indie label The Other Songs, which has Ren, Navy and SUPER-Hi on its roster. His company, founded alongside brother Alastair Webber, started first as a series of events, offering songwriters the chance to perform their unused pitch songs in front of a crowd of publishers and advertisers. From the start, Webber says, they knew they wanted to not only take care of their artists, but also to look after the writers behind their records.
Category: DiMA’s Assault on Songwriters
Will Sunlight Win at the Copyright Royalty Board in Big Tech’s Latest Credibility Debacle? — Music Technology Policy
The Copyright Royalty Judges stand up to the most dangerous corporations in the world and demand transparency in streaming mechanical rate “settlements.”
Will Sunlight Win at the Copyright Royalty Board in Big Tech’s Latest Credibility Debacle? — Music Technology Policy
Songwriter Needs Help: GoFundMe Fundraiser for Hugh Prestwood and Judy Ahrens
If you ever thought we were too aggressive in our campaign to end the 15 year freeze on statutory royalties for physical, consider the situation of songwriter Hugh Prestwood and his wife, photojournalist Judy Ahrens. Songwriters and photographers are two occupations that are devastated by the digital blight that has visited apocalyptic devastation on creators.
As Hugh says in their GoFundMe page, his songwriting income was destroyed by the massive change in the economics of songwriting that split apart the album format with no commensurate increase in songwriter royalties. Songs became a major driver of wealth for hardware manufacturers and Internet providers (remember dancing cows chanting rip, mix, burn?) in the 2000s, and streaming drives wealth for catalogs and platforms. The doubling effect of Moore’s Law imposes a halving effect on creator royalties. Hugh and Judy are living proof of what happens to an aging population of creators who could not have possibly planned around the digital blight–other than learning to code, I guess.
Of course we want to encourage readers to contribute what you can to Hugh and Judy’s GoFundMe, but we also want to make a larger point.
The Copyright Royalty Judges need to understand that there are real consequences to real people when they freeze mechanical royalties. While the Judges are not responsible for all the harms that accrue to songwriters in the rigged statutory licensing and royalty scheme, they do play a part and they can make a difference. Songwriters may not expect the Judges to fix their problems, but they do expect them not to make it worse. Freezing rates for 15 years makes it worse.
The Judges should also understand that they have an opportunity to do something to add fairness back into the system that the Judges effectively control. Creators like Hugh and Judy will never appear in their courtroom alongside the well-heeled lobbyists and lawyers who make millions off of the rate proceedings and the black box in what has become a laughingstock.
Congress, too, needs to listen up. It is well past time for a songwriter advocate to be a permanent part of the Copyright Royalty Board proceedings for mechanical royalty rate settings. A songwriter advocate would speak for people like Hugh and Judy. As Linda said of Willie Lohman in Death of a Salesman, “Attention must be paid.” I’m not asking that songwriters should be able to overrule the lobbyists, although that’s not a bad idea.
But at least hear them out before they’re all gone.
Why Songwriters Should Care About Inflation Protection for Mechanical Licenses — Music Tech Solutions
Index statutory mechanical royalties before inflation hits.
Why Songwriters Should Care About Inflation Protection for Mechanical Licenses — Music Tech Solutions
@musictechpolicy: How Songwriters Get Screwed by Cheese and Pies
For some reason, there’s a focus at the moment on songwriter royalties and in particular for streaming royalty rates. Notice that I said “rates” not “share” or the one I find particularly irritating, “share of the pie.” Let us be clear—there is no “pie” there are only “rates”. Or should be. Let’s investigate why.
To frame this idea (speaking for the U.S. market), let me take you back to a conversation I had with a Nashville session musician and hit songwriter many years ago back before physical mechanical royalty rates were frozen.
He looked at me and said, “Why do I have to take this government cheese royalty rate? I get double scale when I play a date, why can’t I get double stat?”
What he was really saying was why can’t I set my own price as a songwriter for mechanical royalties? And the answer is the same today as it was then: Because songwriters allow the U.S. government to set the price and terms for mechanicals. Or rather the “minimum statutory rate” which is a joke because the “minimum statutory rate” has never been a minimum, it has always been both a minimum and a maximum.
There has also long been an obsession with songwriters and publishers comparing their rates to what artists and record companies get. This comparison was only compounded in the digital era particularly for interactive streaming. If you combine song rates and recording rates, some people get a pie. Other people (like me) get an error message. I’ll explain why.
Artist Rights Watch--News for the Artist Rights Advocacy Community 