 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: hans
Date: 2003-09-24 19:22
The issue of copyright has resurfaced in Ontario this week, with the media reporting that the recording industry wants businesses who use recorded music to buy a licence. To me this makes some sense in the case of, for example, an aerobics instructor, where music is an integral part of the business, but not for a professional office, where it's used to mask sounds and voices or create a calm or soothing environment. A dentist, for example, who wants to play CDs to help his patients relax could be prosecuted if he did so without this licence (I think my dentist will switch to the radio instead).
This made me wonder how the extra money that is collected (nominally for the recording industry/artists) on the sale of blank CDs, and now via licences, ever finds its way back to the recording artists for whom it is supposedly intended.
Does anyone know?
Hans
Post Edited (2003-09-24 23:59)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2003-09-24 19:36
In the USA that's nothing new,.
The tax is paid on blank recordable "audio" CDs, not data CDs. Audio CD recorders (not data recorders) will not copy an audio CD to a data CD.
Some CDs are now encoded and will not record onto a data CD (without some "cracking" software).
Audio CD recorders have never caught on, for some reason.
The fees collected are distributed via play "sampling" - in other words, the recording industry monitors who gets played how many times and apportions the fees that way. Which is why people really try to break into that top 40 - the rest of the groups/musicians get basically the dregs of the fees ...
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2003-09-24 20:10
Hans- I think that copyright fees have already been paid for CD's sold commercially. Dentist office playing is open to question, but I'm sure too small to bother with. Tho, my dentist relaxes us with religious radio of his choice!! Haven't objected, yet! While I'm a retired AFM member of Local 94, and not a current recipient of MPTF funds distribution, their Music Performance Trust Fund of the recording industries does, in my experience, pay about 1/2 scale to union musicians for FREE performances of music to the general public. You 802 'ers please chime in, out of my depth! Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: msloss
Date: 2003-09-24 20:55
Can't speak for our brethren in the wild woolly northlands, but down hyah in the US of A, environmental playback of music (offices, telephones on hold, restaurants, etc.) constitutes public performance and is restricted under the royalty rules. You play - you pay. If an office just plays the radio, you are hearing that broadcast and are counted in the station's listener base and the responsibility for paying royalties falls to them.
Nielsen BDS and other services are used to determine who is getting played, how frequently, etc. As MC said, unallocated royalties from fees on tape, blank CDs, etc. are apportioned from that data. Direct royalties for media sales are handled by the record companies that collect them and paid by contract to the artists (at least those artists that weren't screwed by either the label or their own agents). It is a crappy system which is why a lot of successful artists go indie just to get the middlemen out of the revenue stream.
The MPTF ironically was conceived to keep live music alive in the face of overwhelming sales of recorded music, which would in theory keep people from paying for and attending live concerts. A portion (a very small portion) of industry sales goes into the Fund to support the concerts Don describes. Fast forward and here we are looking at threats to the recorded music economy, which itself threatened the existence of live music.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2003-09-25 04:26
I am blissfully unaware of the laws regarding "public performance for profit" in Canada, and my knowledge of US laws on the topic is so rusty it is very undependable. But for almost ever in the US, performing artists were traditionally shafted, getting no "residual" payments for multiple plays of their recorded performances, only recorded music sales.
Composers, on the other hand, have long accrued royalties on their compositions through licensing organizations such as ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), BMI (Broacast Music Incorporated), and SESAC (originally the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, although they'd prefer you to forget that). These organizations charge most US broadcast stations blanket royalties for playing any music licensed by them. ASCAP and BMI royalties are based on pecentages of broadcast station revenues less sales expenses, SESAC by station power. Broadcast stations that use very little music (news, talk, sports) may opt for a "per performance" royalty, or they may elect to buy some music (limited scope) with outright ownership and no future royalty payments.
License fees are also collected from public performance venues, nightclubs, restaurants, you name it. Most small restaurants and other such operations using radio stations as their sole source of music aren't bothered by the licensing organizations, but those using music with active copyrights on which full royalties have not been paid are subject to court action if they refuse to pay royalties, as long as the use of the music in any way promotes the conduct of their business.
Composers collect their shares of these royalties, determined by various auditing techniques. This revenue is in addition to royalties on sales of their compositions in any form (sheet music or recorded).
If you think performers should get a share of the pie (which would have to be made bigger), write your legislators. That is the way things work in Europe, I'm told.
Regards,
John
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