First and foremost, the problem with the CRB adopting the purported settlement as the law of the land is the appearance of the bootstrapping of a private deal among apparently related parties and the controlled opposition into rates and terms that apply to all songwriters in the world.
Is it madness for songwriters to bet against inflation?
[Editor Charlie sez: This post first appeared on The Trichordist. It is a letter from a coalition of US and international songwriter groups to the Copyright Royalty Board about the frozen mechanical issue. If you want to write your own comment to the Copyright Royalty Board about frozen mechanicals, send your comment to crb@loc.gov. For background, […]
Shenanigans at the CRB may leave songwriters in the deep freeze.
[Editor Charlie sez: The U.S. Copyright Office is proposing many different ways to regulate The MLC, which is the government approved mechanical licensing collective under MMA authorized to collect and pay out “all streaming mechanicals for every song ever written or that ever may be written by any songwriter in the world that is exploited […]
[This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post] Once a song is distributed to the public with the permission of the owner of the copyright in the song, the U.S. Copyright Act requires songwriters to license songs for reproduction and distribution under a “compulsory license.” This license is typically called a “mechanical license” because it […]
[Ed: This post originally appeared on MTP on January 30, 2009–how little has changed American songwriters are one of our greatest sources of culture as well as important contributors to America’s “soft power“–our ability to win hearts and minds around the world by attraction and not by force. As Professor Joseph Nye would say “Lennon […]
In a move perhaps connected to Google’s prosecution and payment of $500 million forfeiture for promoting the sale of illegal drugs, The Guardian reports that the UK Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt will announce today that the Cameron Government expects “Google and other companies to take action against rogue sites, but could introduce new legislation in […]
“Mechanical royalties” refer to monies paid to songwriters or music publishers for reproductions of songs in sound recordings (either for permanent downloads or streaming mechanicals). Mechanical royalties (or “mechanicals”) are usually paid by record companies (or outside the US, by digital retailers). In the United States these rates are set by statute and have varied […]
There is a bit of strategy involved with affiliating with a performing rights society in the United States. All the societies have a creative staff. The decision to affiliate with a particular society should be made after the artist/writer has taken some meetings with the performing rights society and decided if there’s more love coming […]
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