The Scarlet Pimp
Supreme Member
- Apr 2, 2008
- 1,203
- 4,126
To avoid properly compensating songwriters, big data purveyors Amazon and Google are claiming they are unable to find contact information for the deserving songwriters, instead opting to file copyright notices in what appears to be a music land grab, says Chris Castle.
Two vastly wealthy multinational media companies are exploiting a copyright law loophole to sell the world's music without paying royalties to the world’s songwriters on millions–millions–of songs. Why?
Because Google and Amazon–purveyors of Big Data–claim they "can't" find contact information for song owners in a Google search.
So these two companies are exploiting songs without paying royalties by filing millions of notices with the Copyright Office at a huge cost in filing fees that only megacorporations can afford–an unprecedented land grab in nature, size and scope.
That's right–Google and Amazon are falling over themselves to use their market power to stiff songwriters yet again. And as I will show, it is not just obscure songs that are affected. New releases, including one example from Sting, are also targets suggesting significant revenue loss to songwriters.
I happened to speak to a representative of one of the mass NOI filing companies after a recent panel in Los Angeles who assured me that the reason that his clients were filing these NOIs was not because they did not want to pay royalties but because they were so worried about liability from a "Jeff Price jihad" and that his clients fully intended to pay royalties retroactively once the song owner became known unlike the record companies who are "thieves".
I believe that he believes that his client believes that they're just trying to avoid being sued for not having the rights, but humor this unbeliever.
My bet would be that getting that retroactive payment will take the effort worthy of an act of Congress.
Perhaps literally.
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2016...oophole-to-use-songs-not-pay-songwriters.html
Two vastly wealthy multinational media companies are exploiting a copyright law loophole to sell the world's music without paying royalties to the world’s songwriters on millions–millions–of songs. Why?
Because Google and Amazon–purveyors of Big Data–claim they "can't" find contact information for song owners in a Google search.
So these two companies are exploiting songs without paying royalties by filing millions of notices with the Copyright Office at a huge cost in filing fees that only megacorporations can afford–an unprecedented land grab in nature, size and scope.
That's right–Google and Amazon are falling over themselves to use their market power to stiff songwriters yet again. And as I will show, it is not just obscure songs that are affected. New releases, including one example from Sting, are also targets suggesting significant revenue loss to songwriters.
I happened to speak to a representative of one of the mass NOI filing companies after a recent panel in Los Angeles who assured me that the reason that his clients were filing these NOIs was not because they did not want to pay royalties but because they were so worried about liability from a "Jeff Price jihad" and that his clients fully intended to pay royalties retroactively once the song owner became known unlike the record companies who are "thieves".
I believe that he believes that his client believes that they're just trying to avoid being sued for not having the rights, but humor this unbeliever.
My bet would be that getting that retroactive payment will take the effort worthy of an act of Congress.
Perhaps literally.
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2016...oophole-to-use-songs-not-pay-songwriters.html
