When I first heard this via a podcast (I heard it on several and can’t remember which one I heard it on first otherwise I would give some attribution), I just couldn’t believe the audacity of the RIAA. More over, remember that the RIAA is made up of companies like EMI, Sony, and such and it’s just incredible that they think they can get away without the PR backlash of this coming back to hit them.
OK, let’s get to the story. Slashdot was where I first found out that the “RIAA claims ownership of all aritst Royalties for internet radio.” Now, you may glance at this and ignore it but DON’T! If you dig into it you will find out how bad it really is.
‘SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free …
They are talking about any song. I mean any song whether or not the artist signed with a company belonging to the RIAA or not. That is is just pure arrogance.
Another article on this is over at DailyKos where they discuss more detail on what the SoundExchange is. Here is some detail from that article:
“SRCOs (sound recording copyright owners) are subject to a compulsory license for the use of their music…SoundExchange was established to administer the collection and distribution of royalties from such compulsory licenses taken by noninteractive streaming services that use satellite, cable or Internet methods of distribution.”
Other background shows that if the RIAA and it’s parent companies have it’s way, it will be even worse for the independent artists.
So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties
The RIAA must be shut down!