Category: Mass NOIs

Spotify Can’t Find Songwriters Performing at Spotify High Roller Party in Cancun

Ah, Cancun, where the elite meet and the US Consulate is located next to the jail.

According to Digital Music News:

Spotify is currently hosting a pricey offsite meeting in Cancun, Mexico, with dozens or more executives and employees participating.

Of course, Cancun isn’t usually associated with getting work done — unless that work involves repeatedly lifting rum cocktails.  But this offsite is reportedly focused on assembling content groups from various global offices.  Beyond that, we’re not sure of the exact business purpose.

One Spotify executive referred to this as a ‘Spotify Music Conference’.  Another source noted that the ‘entire content org’ at Spotify is attending the getaway.  Sounds like a lot of people.

There seems to be a strong Latin emphasis among the performers (more on that below), which makes sense given the location.  But at this stage, this looks like a broader global content and curator meet-up.

According to one source, the action is happening at the Ritz Carlton Cancun, which is surrounded on all sides by white-sand beaches and light blue waters.  According to the resort’s website, room prices start at $439 a night for an ‘Ocean View Guest Room,’ and quickly climb to $1,329 a night for the spacious ‘Club Master Suite’.

Two of the artists performing at the Spotify soiree…sorry, I mean working conference… are Nicky Jam and ChocQuibTown.  What’s strange about that is that Spotify can’t seem to find the songwriters for these two artists:

nicky jam noi

nick rivera caminero nois

chocquibtown

carlos valencia

Now Spotify can explain to these artists why their songwriters aren’t getting paid.  Good thing we have that Music Modernization Act safe harbor that will put everything right as rain.

@soundexchange: SXWorks Announces New Services for Music Publishers and Songwriters

PRESS RELEASE

 

JUNE 12, 2018

SXWorks Announces New Services for Music Publishers and Songwriters

NOI Premium Expands on NOI LOOKUP Tools

WASHINGTON, DC – June 12, 2018 – SXWorks, a subsidiary of SoundExchange, today announced that it has developed two new services to expand upon NOI LOOKUP, the innovative new tool launched in January to help music publishers and songwriters search the more than 70 million address unknown Notice of Intention to Use (NOI) filings made with the U.S. Copyright Office.

NOI Premium Services, available beginning today from SXWorks, will give publishers and songwriters more opportunities to claim unpaid mechanical royalties from digital service providers (DSPs) and facilitate communication for creators with DSPs and the Copyright Office.

“Development of NOI Premium Services is a direct result of interest in our NOI LOOKUP service and the demand for more services from the publishers who use NOI LOOKUP,” said Michael Huppe, Chairman of the Board of SXWorks. “Since the introduction of NOI LOOKUP, songwriters and publishers have asked us to advance our efforts to help them get paid fairly and accurately.”

The new NOI Premium Services unveiled today are Works Claiming and Recordation.

Works Claiming helps publishers submit ownership claims and works shares to a digital service provider (DSP) for its use of a musical work. NOI Premium Services customers upload their works claims to SXWorks. SXWorks then sorts, formats and aggregates the uploaded file and forwards the rights owner’s claim and information to the proper contact at the DSPs identified by the publisher that filed NOIs for the musical work in question. A flat fee of $100 covers the cost of submitting up to three Works Claiming spreadsheets during a one-year period, each with up to 500 titles listed.

Recordation services take the Works Claiming tool a step further. If a songwriter or publisher requests the Recordation service, SXWorks will facilitate submission of the proper information and documents to the Copyright Office so the Office’s records are current and DSPs can locate a publisher’s contact information and ownership data. The recordation fee is $75 per submission plus fees charged by the Copyright Office.

“These new services represent the next step in the evolution of NOI LOOKUP. We know that giving publishers more control by creating new tools will help us chip away at the problem surrounding NOIs and unpaid royalties,” Huppe said. “It’s also important to note that NOI LOOKUP and NOI Premium Services represent the latest innovation – following our International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) Search and our new Music Data Exchange (MDX) program launched last month – to help publishers and songwriters by bringing transparency and efficiency to the music industry.”

To learn more about the new Works Claiming and Recordation services, read our FAQs here.

About SXWorks
SXWorks provides global services to music publishers to support multiple licensing configurations. SXWorks, a subsidiary of SoundExchange, is governed by a board consisting of leading music publishers and SoundExchange executives. SXWorks was created in conjunction with the 2017 acquisition of the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd. (CMRRA). CMRRA represents the mechanical rights of music publishers and administers the majority of songs recorded, sold and broadcast in Canada.

You Can’t Find What You Don’t Look For: Spotify, Google, Pandora Can’t Find Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry–but what about Martha Stewart — Music Technology Policy

In another odd twist in the 60,000,000-plus “mass NOI” debacle, a five second search of the SX Works NOI Lookup database reveals that Spotify, Google, Pandora and other services can’t seem to locate Aerosmith songwriters like Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, not to mention their co-writers like long-time Bryan Adams collaborator Jim Vallence. This time there are easy to find documents in the Copyright Office records identifying Aerosmith copyright owners that should have found if anyone bothered to look for them at the services, all of which certified to the Copyright Office that they had done the research.  Which raises the question of whether the services have all violated the federal statute that prohibits making false statements when filing documents, certainly any that invoke the awesome power of the Sovereign to force songwriters to give up property rights.

via You Can’t Find What You Don’t Look For: Spotify, Google, Pandora Can’t Find Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry–but what about Martha Stewart — Music Technology Policy

@andreworlowski: Spotify wants to go public but can’t find Ed Sheeran (to pay him)

Nor Drake. Nor Bruno Mars. You’d think they weren’t trying very hard

Spotify has ended five years of speculation about an IPO, and has filed for a public share offering likely to make its founders – and large record labels – extremely rich indeed.

But although that giant payday is built on the back of songwriters’ “sweat and precog”*, Spotify still has trouble finding them to pay them. Even when they’re as world famous as Ed Sheeran…

For more than a year, music services have been exploiting a loophole in US copyright law. Instead of sending a cheque for mechanical royalties, they’ve been filing a statutory “notice of intention” to pay them instead. The NOI is a piece of paper which isn’t redeemable for cash. (The curious can peruse the most recent NOI filings – and Spotify is not alone in filing them! – with the Licensing Division of the US Copyright Office here**).

Millions of NOIs have now been filed. How come?

Amazingly, the law does not oblige the user of the music, Spotify, to do a diligent search on who wrote it. Nor does the law oblige them to maintain and use their own records. So you can be sure that Spotify knows exactly how to find Ed Sheeran to pay him his performanceroyalty. However, in a display of insolence that Kevin The Stroppy Teenager (pictured) would envy, it manages not to find Ed Sheeran to pay him his mechanical royalty. Ed who?

Read the post on The Register