Folie à deux: Will the Copyright Royalty Board Share the Madness of Pretending That Songwriters Aren’t Affected by Economic Inflation?
Is it madness for songwriters to bet against inflation?
Category: Copyright
@thetrichordist: Coalition of Songwriter Groups Call on Copyright Royalty Board for Fairness and Transparency on Frozen Mechanicals
[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, […]
@thetrichordist: Will the Copyright Royalty Board Leave Songwriters In the Deep Freeze?
Shenanigans at the CRB may leave songwriters in the deep freeze.
Copyright Office Regulates the MLC: Selected Public Comments on MLC Transparency: @zoecello
[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 […]
Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 3: Create an Audit Right for Songwriters
[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 […]
The MTP Interview: An Inconvenient Truth: Songwriters Guild President Rick Carnes talks about the effect of piracy on American songwriters
[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 […]
Do it, or we’ll do it for you: Jeremy Hunt and Ed Vaizey stand up for human rights of UK artists
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 […]
Artist Glossary of Industry Terms: “Mechanical Royalties”
“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 […]
20 Questions for New Artists: Performing Rights Society Affiliation
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 […]
Artist Glossary of Industry Terms–Advance
Artist Glossary of Industry Terms: “Advance” An “advance” is almost always defined as a pre-payment of royalties, whether the advance is paid by record company to an artist, a publisher to a writer or a merchandiser to an artist. An advance is also sometimes called a “minimum guarantee”. Advances in the music industry do not […]
