How does SoundExchange/CPB agreement benefit creativity and artists' pocketbooks?
The recent agreement between SoundExchange and CPB for streaming NPR air signals claims to be artist friendly. I wonder how many artists are aware that, under this agreement, we programmers are limited by this little provision, provided this week by the vice president in charge of the three radio stations where my program airs:
"We are subject to the provision of the Copyright Law that restricts us
from playing online 3 different selections from a single CD within a
3-hour period and only two of those back-to-back; the same provision
restricts us from playing 4 recordings in a 3-hour period by the same
artist or from the same collection of CDs sold together as a set."
Piedmont bluesman John Cephas, a friend, and last of the breed, who died last month, was recently honored with a memorial program on my Out O' the Blue Radio Revue which featured 8 of his songs in our 2 hour program. Under this provision, I would not be able to do this memorial. There's something wrong with this picture.
I have opened the program for the last 13 years with a song I wrote and recorded, called "Virginia." I have never received a royalty check from BMI, Sound Exchange, or anybody else for this Theme Song airplay, a category supposedly that generates a higher rate. How is Sound Exchange going to right this wrong within this agreement?
This agreement is a restriction of artistic freedom to play what we want, when we want to. As long as I'm not airing offensive, obscene material, then no one should be able to tell me that! It's an abomination of what NPR stands for. I will wager that if the artists we play on the air knew about this, they would be up in arms.
If the government can find $170 billion for AIG in three months, then it can move to stop this insanity and assault on artistic freedom, and negotiate something that is truly good for artists, copyright holders, and licensing agencies alike, in a similar time period, or less.
In this day and age, the ancient logging techniques of BMI, ASCAP and SESAC should be brought into the modern digital age by mandate. They CAN tag a song digitally, and pay for actual airplay, instead of guestimating from a sample, and giving the big checks to the big players.
Also, as far as I know, there is no technology that can tell how many listeners are plugged into a station's stream, or where they are located. How can they say that this will make it possible for artists to be paid fairly, and not, once again, on some disjointed, self interested entity's opinion?
I say, tell your streaming listeners what's going here, for a week or so, let them know it's coming and why, and then turn off your stream. Urge them to contact their Congressmen and Senators, and raise hell. Make them stop this contract from being put into force, and change this provision.
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!
Page Wilson
"We are subject to the provision of the Copyright Law that restricts us
from playing online 3 different selections from a single CD within a
3-hour period and only two of those back-to-back; the same provision
restricts us from playing 4 recordings in a 3-hour period by the same
artist or from the same collection of CDs sold together as a set."
Piedmont bluesman John Cephas, a friend, and last of the breed, who died last month, was recently honored with a memorial program on my Out O' the Blue Radio Revue which featured 8 of his songs in our 2 hour program. Under this provision, I would not be able to do this memorial. There's something wrong with this picture.
I have opened the program for the last 13 years with a song I wrote and recorded, called "Virginia." I have never received a royalty check from BMI, Sound Exchange, or anybody else for this Theme Song airplay, a category supposedly that generates a higher rate. How is Sound Exchange going to right this wrong within this agreement?
This agreement is a restriction of artistic freedom to play what we want, when we want to. As long as I'm not airing offensive, obscene material, then no one should be able to tell me that! It's an abomination of what NPR stands for. I will wager that if the artists we play on the air knew about this, they would be up in arms.
If the government can find $170 billion for AIG in three months, then it can move to stop this insanity and assault on artistic freedom, and negotiate something that is truly good for artists, copyright holders, and licensing agencies alike, in a similar time period, or less.
In this day and age, the ancient logging techniques of BMI, ASCAP and SESAC should be brought into the modern digital age by mandate. They CAN tag a song digitally, and pay for actual airplay, instead of guestimating from a sample, and giving the big checks to the big players.
Also, as far as I know, there is no technology that can tell how many listeners are plugged into a station's stream, or where they are located. How can they say that this will make it possible for artists to be paid fairly, and not, once again, on some disjointed, self interested entity's opinion?
I say, tell your streaming listeners what's going here, for a week or so, let them know it's coming and why, and then turn off your stream. Urge them to contact their Congressmen and Senators, and raise hell. Make them stop this contract from being put into force, and change this provision.
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!
Page Wilson
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Imre Fitos on -
Page Wilson wrote:
> In this day and age, the ancient logging techniques of BMI, ASCAP and SESAC should be brought into the modern digital age by mandate. They CAN tag a song digitally, and pay for actual airplay, instead of guestimating from a sample, and giving the big checks to the big players.
We've been studying the SoundExchange documents and they demand the exact same thing from stations that you just asked for!
If you go to soundexchange.com, choose the "I Am A Service Provider", then the "Reporting Requirements" options, you will see that all stations are required to submit reports detailing what song was heard by how many people. Song descriptions have to include artist, title, album and label information.
Imre Fitos - Public Interactive
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Permalink Reply by Page Wilson on -
We're going to log two weeks every quarter, and payment will be made according to that. So it's still just a sample, not actual pay for play. If I thought they were going to actually pay us royalty payments for actual airplay, I wouldn't mind logging every song every week.
While Arbitron can guestimate how many listeners we have, there is NO technology that can tell us how many people are listening to the stream. And that, supposedly, is the basis for the new rules, I have been told. It's still telling me what I can play, and when I can play it. And that is just plain wrong!
Pg
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Permalink Reply by Imre Fitos on
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About the two weeks: that is a temporary compromise between broadcasters and rightsholders. Broadcasters asked for leniency because most of them had no system to record all songs that were played.
The Copyright Royalty Board said in 2006 in 71 Fed. Reg. 59010, that year-round census reporting of use of sound recordings would likely be the standard in the future, as a transitional measure, it ‘‘determined that, at this stage, it is best to require periodic reporting of sound recording performances.‘‘ So it's coming. I think SoundExchange is already able to process year-round reports.
About the listener numbers: you are right that no technology can count how many people are around a receiver and are able to hear a song. The only available information is how many receivers were receiving the song, and with online delivery that part is quite dependable. Streaming systems can show exactly what time each receiver started and stopped listening, so that's what they are basing the reporting on.
Hope this helps!
Imre
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