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stolen from slashdot:
RIAA Wants Artist Royalties Lowered
"The RIAA has asked the panel of federal government Copyright Royalty Judges to lower royalties paid to publishers and songwriters. They're specifically after digital recordings, and uses like cell phone ringtones. They say that the rates (which were placed in 1981) don't apply the same way to new technologies."
From the article: "According to The Hollywood Reporter, the RIAA maintains that in the modern period when piracy began devastating the record industry profits to publishers from sales of ringtones and other 'innovative services' grew dramatically.
Record industry executives believe this to be cause to advocate reducing the royalties paid to the artists who wrote the original music."
from the IGN article:
RIAA Wants Artist Royalties Lowered
"The RIAA has asked the panel of federal government Copyright Royalty Judges to lower royalties paid to publishers and songwriters. They're specifically after digital recordings, and uses like cell phone ringtones. They say that the rates (which were placed in 1981) don't apply the same way to new technologies."
From the article: "According to The Hollywood Reporter, the RIAA maintains that in the modern period when piracy began devastating the record industry profits to publishers from sales of ringtones and other 'innovative services' grew dramatically.
Record industry executives believe this to be cause to advocate reducing the royalties paid to the artists who wrote the original music."
from the IGN article:
On December 1 The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the RIAA is currently petitioning the panel of federal government Copyright Royalty Judges to lower the rates paid to publishers and songwriters for use of lyrics and melodies in applications like cell phone ring tones and other digital recordings. The last time the American government set the rate was in 1981, but since that time, the RIAA argues in its petition, a lot has changed.
"While record companies and music publishers were able to agree on royalty rates during that 25-year period, the assumptions on which those decisions were based have changed beyond recognition," the RIAA brief reads.
There's no doubt about that, but it's obnoxious to see the RIAA finally acknowledge that fact only when it serves to aid their cause rather than that of consumers who rejected CD-based distribution years before the music industry got onboard the digital distribution train. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the RIAA maintains that in the modern period when piracy began devastating the record industry (Highly debatable. Sales went down, but a direct relationship to piracy is not proven. -ed.) profits to publishers from sales of ringtones and other "innovative services" grew dramatically. Record industry executives believe this to be cause to advocate reducing the royalties paid to the artists who wrote the original music.
[....]
The language of this statement reveals a great deal about who the RIAA is looking out for, and it's not artists. Couched in terms of apparent necessity, the RIAA's is insisting that the real musicians be paid less so that the record companies can continue to "drive revenues." If piracy really is devastating the recording industry and cell phone ringtones are one of the remaining highly profitable distributed mediums, should the RIAA really be trying to ensure that musicians be paid less for them while they're already hurting from lost revenue on album sales? At best the RIAA is kicking artists when they're down via this action, and at worst has fully revealed that despite repeated claims that artists need to be protected from piracy, the organization is very much the tool of the major labels and publishers who have famously never really cared about the artists in the first place.
"While record companies and music publishers were able to agree on royalty rates during that 25-year period, the assumptions on which those decisions were based have changed beyond recognition," the RIAA brief reads.
There's no doubt about that, but it's obnoxious to see the RIAA finally acknowledge that fact only when it serves to aid their cause rather than that of consumers who rejected CD-based distribution years before the music industry got onboard the digital distribution train. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the RIAA maintains that in the modern period when piracy began devastating the record industry (Highly debatable. Sales went down, but a direct relationship to piracy is not proven. -ed.) profits to publishers from sales of ringtones and other "innovative services" grew dramatically. Record industry executives believe this to be cause to advocate reducing the royalties paid to the artists who wrote the original music.
[....]
The language of this statement reveals a great deal about who the RIAA is looking out for, and it's not artists. Couched in terms of apparent necessity, the RIAA's is insisting that the real musicians be paid less so that the record companies can continue to "drive revenues." If piracy really is devastating the recording industry and cell phone ringtones are one of the remaining highly profitable distributed mediums, should the RIAA really be trying to ensure that musicians be paid less for them while they're already hurting from lost revenue on album sales? At best the RIAA is kicking artists when they're down via this action, and at worst has fully revealed that despite repeated claims that artists need to be protected from piracy, the organization is very much the tool of the major labels and publishers who have famously never really cared about the artists in the first place.
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