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
Category: Frozen Mechanicals
Save the date June 15: @A2IM Indie Week Panel with @MusicTechPolicy on the Impact on Indie Labels of Unfreezing Mechanicals —
ARW readers in NYC may want to see Chris Castle speaking on June 15 at Indie Week on the impact on indie labels of the CRB raising the statutory mechanical rate.
Save the date: A2IM Indie Week Panel on the Impact on Indie Labels of Unfreezing Mechanicals — Music Technology Policy
Series 3 of the @ArtistRights Watch Podcast is here! Nik Patel, @DavidCLowery, @MusicTechPolicy and @KCEsq Discuss The Future of Frozen Mechanicals
Series 3 of The Artist Rights Watch Podcast is here! Nik, David, and Chris are joined by attorney Kevin Casini to talk about the latest with the Copyright Royalty Board and mechanical rates in the Phonorecords IV proceeding.
Check out the podcast here!! Available on all platforms!
ARW Podcast S3E1: Unfreezing Mechanicals show notes
On the this episode of the Artist Rights Watch, Nik, David, and Chris sit down to talk about the recent developments with the CRB and mechanicals with lawyer and advocate, Kevin Casini. The Copyright Royalty Board who herein will more than likely be referred to as the CRB, ‘is a US system of three copyright reality judges who determines rates and terms for copyright statutory licenses and make determinations on distribution of statutory license royalties collected by the US Copyright Office.’ The US mechanical royalties are determined by the CRB and they meet every 5 years to determine the rate. Songwriter groups argued for a higher rate, and the CRB agreed. On March 29, 2022 the CRB agreed to unfreeze the $0.091 mechanical royalty rate which would commence a fight for a new rate in the 2023-2027 period. Over the past few years, there has been numerous criticisms about the constant rule for freezing the mechanical royalty rate. The royalty rate currently is $0.091 which was set back in 2006, and frankly, songwriters are making less money due to economic inflation.
Show Notes and Background Materials
Copyright Royalty Board’s Rejection of NMPA, NSAI, Sony, Warner, Universal settlement
Survey Results from Songwriter Survey on Frozen Mechanicals
Selected Frozen Mechanicals Comments:
Helienne Lindvall, David Lowery, Blake Morgan
Abby North, Erin McAnally, Chelsea Crowell
NMPA, NSAI, Sony, Warner, Universal Comment with Copy of MOU4
Below are some links about Guest Kevin Casini:
Below are some links for further reading:
https://variety.com/2022/music/news/copyright-royalty-board-crb-rate-1235219872/
https://variety.com/2022/music/news/songwriters-win-copyright-royalty-board-mechanical-royalties-1235259518/
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/record-labels-and-publishers-ink-major-settlement-moving-from-9-1-cents-to-12-cents-per-track-for-us-mechanical-royalties-on-physical-sales1/
Below are our social links and terms of use:
Chris: http://www.christiancastle.com/chris-castle
David: https://twitter.com/davidclowery?s=20
https://www.instagram.com/davidclowery/
Nik: https://www.instagram.com/nikpatelmusic/
Website: https://artistrightswatch.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artistrightswatch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArtistRights?s=20
Terms of Use: https://artistrightswatchdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/arw-podcast-terms-of-use-v-1-i-1.pdf
Intro/Outro song: “All My Years” by Nik Patel
@felixsalmon: Inflation has squelched the optimists
[Editor Charlie sez: Thankfully the current proposal for physical/download mechanicals includes an inflation index for songwriters but only after commenters freaked out.]
The broad optimism that Americans felt about the economy in the spring of 2021 — optimism that even a global pandemic and hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths couldn’t squelch — has finally been undone by inflation, and health worries that are getting worse rather than better.
Why it matters: The sharp rise in food and energy prices over the past year has had a particularly harsh effect on the finances of suburban and rural Americans.
Driving the news: Every six months, McKinsey and Ipsos conduct a massive survey of Americans, asking about their perceptions of the current state of the economy. This time around, sentiment has fallen sharply.
By the numbers: For the first time since the survey began last year, Americans have a negative outlook on the economy. The overall index fell to 99 (a “negative outlook”) this spring from 103 (a “positive outlook”) a year ago.
Survey Results: Physical and Download Mechanical Rates Survey
Many readers participated in the Physical and Download Mechanical Rates Survey that various organizations have sent to their members over the last few weeks. Here are the results of the main questions for which we had 361 respondents who self-selected their participation. (Other answers included comments which we chose not to publish for privacy reasons.).
The results suggest that participants were mostly informed songwriters who had never been asked before what they thought about the issues in the Copyright Royalty Board. We would have to conclude that any of our regular readers would be a bit skewed toward knowledgeable because between the Trichordist, MusicTechPolicy, ARW, Hypebot and Celebrity Access we were probably carrying a very high percentage of the available information on the frozen mechanicals issues.
It also is striking how few respondents said they had ever been asked what they think about any mechanical rates (physical, download, streaming), an important and easily measurable issue. This is something to add to the learning from this episode. It may be that our data is skewed, but even so we didn’t expect that 68% would say they’d never even been asked their opinion. An easy way to find out what people think about something is to ask them.
Artist Rights Watch--News for the Artist Rights Advocacy Community 