Pandora: A Change in Priorities

So you’re an independent recording artist, casting about everywhere you can for airplay and exposure. Pandora, the internet-radio service with the taste-smart music library, has just accepted one of your original recordings for rotation. Great, right? Pandora provides access to your music on one of the most talked-about music platforms out there. It’s a step in the right direction, a win.

Except it isn’t anymore.

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Would You Sue a Restaurant for $30,000 If They Didn't Pay You Royalties?

This makes me queasy:
Restaurant Owner Ordered to Pay BMI $30,450 For ‘Illegally Playing’ Four Unlicensed Songs

This is not about feeding musicians, it’s about feeding the “Royalty Collection Agencies”.

BMI began sending communication regarding the restaurant’s lack of proper licensing back in September of 2009, but it wasn’t until May of 2010 that BMI even bothered to visit Fosters to verify that the business was actually playing unlicensed music. (From page 32 of the PDF.)

So without verifying anything, BMI starts demanding payment from a restaurant for “Piracy”.

This is how the mafia demands “protection”.

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How to solve Royalty Collection Societies

This is a repost of something I published earlier today on my personal blog. Normally, I don’t like to repost stuff - but it kind of occurred to me that this is probably where I should have blogged it in the first place… :)

Performance Rights Organisations pay composers when their work is broadcast or otherwise performed in public. And rightly so. But making sure that everyone gets paid fairly is difficult to ensure - particularly when you consider how much data you’d need to track in order to be entirely accurate.

I think there’s another way.

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