Josh Kear puts Gov't Music Regulations on BLAST

It's happening to me. I've been doing this for 17 years. I make about 15% of what I made at the height...and I didn't make more than a Google employee even then. I'm seriously looking at getting out of the business just because there's no end in sight. If this were ANY other industry. ANY. There would be rioting in the streets.
I've sometime thought, "well, maybe songwriters are just like blacksmiths in 1902..." But here's the deal. Our commodity is still in demand. In HIGH demand. People can just steal our product with no repercussions. I had someone say that there "basically isn't really illegal downloading anymore..." Well, now it has turned to giant corporations stealing our product. The rate at which they pay is basically theft - and the government condones it. Rates for buying singles haven't increased since 1962. Rates for streaming haven't been changed since 2001 - before the invention of the ipod or iphone.

The Performing Rights Organizations agreed to a small fractional amount with RADIO for each spin. They agreed to that tiny amount because each spin is multiplied by the amount of listeners that are listening when the song is played. For instance - they know that in Nashville, TN at 3:00 PM the average listening audience for WSIX is say - 100,000 people. So when my song is spun at 3PM, it generates .000113 cents (guessing the true amount). BUT - since there are 100,000 people listening, it is multiplied by 100,000. So, the real amount for the spin is: $11.30. Now, multiply that by all the radio stations spinning the song, multiple times a day around the world. That is why the .000113 was agreed on.

Now, enter Spotify. They take advantage of a Consent Decree which was originally written in the 1940s. It says that songwriters HAVE to offer the same rate to ANY company that asks for a license. So - if radio gets the song for .000113 per "impression," then that has to be the same rate everywhere else. Basically, songwriters do not have the right to make separate deals with different entities. (These were back-room deals made in the 1920s that declared ASCAP a monopoly and supposedly prevented rate gouging - now it is use to protect poor companies like Google from the evil songwriter...) So when Spotify spins a song 1 Million times, they divide it by .000113 cents. That's $113 divided by however many songwriters that wrote the song. For 1 Millions spins. There is no audience to multiply the number by. Songwriters would have NEVER agreed to this.

So, it's just a mistake, right?? You would think so, but the consent decrees have been upheld by multiple courts. BIG BUSINESSES like Google, Spotify, Youtube, Pandora, etc. are making money hand over fist by keeping this the way it is. Streaming companies claim that they couldn't operate as a company if they had to pay more. Well, no shit. They are taking OUR commodity and making ALL the profit. If they had to pay songwriters a living wage, their business plan wouldn't make sense. Regardless of what your political persuasion is, there is no doubt that the past administration protected Google and their EVERY whim. It's an extremely frustrating thing.

I'll stop now before I stroke out.

the other problem is that if all of the pro writers (guys like you, john) pull out, you'll have a bunch of young noobs who don't know any better jump in to fill the void. and since those noobs don't know about how much songwriters used to get paid, they'll be perfectly fine getting that paltry rate for streams.

I feel ya John.  Hope things get better for all of us.  Appreciate you bringing this back into focus all the time.  Cheers,  bp

Just got this email from Sony

Dear Songwriter,

This week the most important trial most people have never heard of will begin in Washington, D.C. This little-known and rarely reported on proceeding will determine the royalty rates that digital streaming services must pay to play your songs for the next five years.

As a creator whose songs fuel the entire music industry, you need to know about this critical fight that will determine how your work is valued. Because in a world where on-demand streaming is how we listen to music, the royalty rates decided at this trial will define the future success for you and your fellow songwriters.

On Wednesday, March 8th, two sides will appear before a panel of three judges known as the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). On one side, giant technology companies Google, Apple, Amazon, Spotify and Pandora will argue to reduce the already low mechanical royalty rates they pay to play your songs. On the other side we at Sony/ATV, with the National Music Publishers’ Association, will be fighting alongside the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) for a much needed increase in the royalties you are paid.

The last ten years have seen incredible and innovative advancements in how your songs are delivered to music fans. Technology companies are a critical part of this new digital story. But, while these multi-billion-dollar tech companies are creating new ways to distribute music, they are also fighting in this trial to pay as little as possible to songwriters for the songs that drive their businesses.

How can they do this? Unlike other creators—such as recording artists, painters, sculptors, authors, actors, photographers, video game programmers—who are able to negotiate freely their own rates, songwriters and music publishers are forced to fight for royalty rates through a long, extremely expensive CRB trial against giant digital companies with substantially more money and power.

In fact, the government has been setting your mechanical royalty rates for over 100 years—beginning in 1909—when Congress determined that these rights would be subject to a compulsory license. This means that anyone can record a songwriter’s work for a fixed rate without permission or approval. Congress used to set this rate, but has since delegated the task to the CRB judges.

Today these three judges determine what songwriters are paid for what has become the music industry’s most significant growth sector: interactive streaming.

As any songwriter looking at his or her royalty statement knows, current interactive streaming rates—set over ten years ago when digital streaming was just beginning—pay very little to song creators. These low royalty rates have immensely benefited large digital companies who have built thriving music services used to deliver your songs and to draw consumers into their larger “ecosystems.” While royalties paid to songwriters have remained small, giant tech companies have used your songs to sell not just music subscriptions, but also other products and services such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices, iPhones, Beats headphones and Amazon Prime subscriptions.

More problematic, the current mechanical royalty rates have allowed Spotify to continue to offer a full access music service that is free to consumers. This means Spotify can make all of your songs available while charging consumers nothing and paying you (almost) nothing.

Even former Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews agrees this is unacceptable. He recently wrote, “Free-to-the-listener on-demand services are driving down music’s intrinsic value by creating a ‘gray-market’… An ever-growing number of listeners are happily lingering in music’s gray market, enjoying full access to all music without paying for the privilege and with little incentive or intention to convert to a full-paying subscription.”

A rate structure that allows global tech companies to build their empires on the backs of songwriters, without providing those songwriters with fair compensation, is unsustainable. And as interactive streaming continues to grow, and other sources of mechanical revenue—like physical products and digital downloads—continue to shrink, ensuring songwriters are fairly compensated has become critical.

And so the question becomes, “what is fair?” True fairness is a songwriter being paid each time his or her song is played or each time a user purchases a subscription. We have the technology to do this—and anything less degrades the value of what you have created. A fair rate must also take into account the benefits songwriters have provided—through the music they create—to the growth of a tech company’s larger business. If Amazon is using your music to sell Echos or Amazon Prime subscriptions, it should be required to share with you the benefits received.

We at Sony/ATV together with the NMPA are working on your behalf to achieve better, fairer royalty rates for all songwriters and music publishers. Our proposal asks the CRB to adopt a structure that recognizes the inherent value of a song, the value of a subscriber’s payment to access those songs, and all of the revenue that digital services generate from offering your music.

We believe that your songs are worth more, and beginning Wednesday, March 8, we will be making that argument before the CRB. This is our only chance for the next five years to bring the royalty rates you are paid in line with the value your songs bring to interactive streaming services.

Sony/ATV and NMPA have your back. But we need your help and your voice to stand up to the giant digital companies who don’t.

Please click on the link below and sign the letter encouraging Google, Apple, Amazon, Spotify and Pandora to do the right thing. Stop litigating against songwriters and pay them a fair rate for their songs. It’s not too late to do what’s right for songwriters. Make your voice heard. Click here NOW.


CLICK HERE TO SIGN

www.gopetition.com/petitions/songwriters-to-big-tech-stop-fighting-us-in-crb.html

The video seems factual enough.  But he spins it through the conservative lens of "the government is the problem."  Sure, outdated regulations are no doubt part of the problem.  But I would argue that the bigger crime here is the way corporations like Spotify and Youtube are stealing from artists and fighting regulatory reform.    
Let's not also forget that for many years writers got the big piece of the royalty pie, while the sidemen and studio musicians that often created the music that hooked in the listener received an hourly wage. So it now strikes me as a tad disingenuous when songwriters cry foul, even though for years their royalty checks were the fruits of an archaic system originally designed around the selling of sheet music. Sidemen and studio owners felt the pinch years ago, and now it's finally caught up with the writers too.  I'm hoping that someday all artists can create a new system that benefits everyone involved in recording.    

Signed!

Signed and shared. Thanks John.

That's horse shit. Musician's get paid a fair wage because they are unionized. Believe me, after you pay the Health and Welfare, pension, master scale and cartage, they are VERY well taken care of. If they don't like the terms they are working under, they have the option to go where someone will pay them more. Songwriters don't. They are forced - by the government, no less - to take the wage set by the rate court. And then they are forced to sell to anyone that wants it at that rate. I don't have the ability to refuse licensing of my song to certain companies.

I have ZERO idea what you mean by writers "got a piece of the royalty pie." What for their intellectual property that THEY created? Imagine that. And BTW, you think .0925% is a big part of the pie?? That's how much a writer gets for a mechanical sale. .09 cents per song for every album sold. THEN split that between the co-writers. THEN pay back the publishers for advances. I've had songs on over 10 million albums and never seen ONE DIME of mechanical royalties.

This was at CPAC. Of course it's going to be colored with a conservative tint...but conservatives are right in this instance. This issue is vastly over-regulated. And is absolutely fucked up by the government.

He's using the time he was allotted to address an audience in a language they understand, with a concern over outdated regulations that negatively affect him personally. If the goal is to get meaningful results from the conversation, I'm not sure there's a better way to approach the situation.


Preaching to the audience over a dozen other ancillary issues, or scolding them over their political beliefs, isn't really going to accomplish much in comparison.

Yes, count me as liberal and proud to be one.  I'm not denying that there needs to be a change in regulations to better protect songwriters, just that large corporations are now making money off the backs of songwriters and musicians and that to me seems to be the bigger problem.  I think that we can agree that between outmoded regulations and greedy corporations like Spotify and Youtube things need to change.
I obviously struck a nerve with you John re songwriting royalties.  I work as a full time producer/musician in the Northeast.  Over the past few decades I've seen income for musicians diminish greatly, (no more cartage in my neck of the woods) along with many of the best studios disappearing.  During many of those years income for my songwriting friends working in Nashville stayed very lucrative due to the way profits from recording had historically gone mostly to the songwriter due to an archaic system set up for sheet music royalties before the age of recording.  The prevailing knowledge was that the money in music was in songwriting and everyone knew that.  Recently the hard times have finally hit the writers too, as you have eloquently described, and I'm not happy to see that in spite of the irony. We ALL need to make a living wage so that great music can continue in this country.  I'm not sure what the solution is, but I think that the whole profit sharing system of recording should be scrapped in favor of one that pays a living wage to all of the creative folks involved, including the musicians and engineers that turn good songs into hit records.  

And yes, the problem is the government is protecting the large corporations because of an anti-trust law established in the 1940s. They claimed that ASCAP was acting as a monopoly and charging rates that buyers couldn't afford. Now, all of the PROs are still bound by that anti-trust ruling and THAT is why we can't negotiate with Pandora, Spotify, Youtube, Amazon, Google, etc. The creator/songwriter is now absolutely exploited by big industry. The government protects the very people that are exploiting the American worker.