Read Before You Sign

Wow!  I read this a few hours after posting my revisited Rotten post.  Braindeadly should have read Rotten. I was shocked that the Sex Pistols had signed an in perpetuity contract with Warner Bros. in the US, well Techdirt had this story of Braindeadly (Ben Vacas) who apparently did the same thing with the owner of his YouTube network. 

As Techdirt states:   It's going to become increasingly important that formerly amateur YouTube stars read the contracts they sign with a growing number of upstart "YouTube Networks" very carefully, or else they are going to face situations such as we're seeing with Machinima [owner of the YouTube Network] stars, who are shutting down production because they're locked into lifetime and beyond contracts with the multi-channel network.

It pains me to hear that at this stage of the game people are still signing quickly and not reading or having someone else read, a contract before they sign.  There must be such panic to sign, that no thought is given to the consequences.  In the case of the Sex Pistols they just wanted to know how much money they would get, which turned out to be very little. 

The Major Labels Aren't Using Trolls

For years, the major record labels were able to manipulate sales numbers and the sales charts.  Billboard, Cash Box, Record World all charted records.  The numbers were a cumulative score including both radio play and sales.  I worked at Record World as an intern in the early 80's. My job was to call record stores and report units sold.  As you can guess, this is not the most scientific method and until Soundscan came along, it was the way things were done. 

There is a bit of a clamor that the labels are at it again, but this time it involves manipulating YouTube views for their videos.  YouTube began a campaign against falsely inflated views, but it turns out this has nothing to do with the decrease in views on videos by Universal and Sony artists. The sudden drop in views led people to believe the labels had their trolls out inflating the views. 

As TechDirt points out  it turns out that most of the issue was just that the labels had moved their videos from YouTube to Vevo -- the online video site that the labels had started a few years ago (built on top of YouTube technology). As Billboard notes, the "de-spamming" effort did delete about 1.5 million views from Sony and Universal Music videos -- so there may be some funny business, but that's tiny compared to the 2 billion views that disappeared.

YouTube also changed the way they count "dead videos" which would include those videos that have been moving over to Vevo.   Highly viewed videos that were on Universal and Sony's YouTube channels are now at Vevo. As a result, the views that those videos received during their time on the dedicated label channels were taken away in YouTube's latest "clean up" effort.

It's nice to start off the year with a clean slate. 

TuneCore Shocker

Jeff Price the founder, CEO, mouthpiece and champion of TuneCore is inexplicably gone from the company.

This comes as quite a shock.  I knew Jeff when he ran the spinART record label.  Strangely he is still listed as CEO on the TuneCore website.  Co-founder Peter Wells  is also no longer working with them.

Jeff explains their mission and accomplishments in his open letter dated today.  Jeff was outspoken about injustices he saw in the music business, especially those against the artists by record labels.  Most of the time he was right on the money.  His goal was enabling musicians by putting the power in their hands.  They no longer needed records label and as of recently, publishing companies.  When I worked with Amoeba Records there was no question that we were going to work with TuneCore. It just made too much sense. Jeff was exited to have us on board. 

TechDirt has a detailed post, although it hasn't been revealed why Jeff and Peter are abruptly gone from the company.  This seems like a huge mistake.  Why fix it if it ain't broke? 

Update 8-17-12. 
Here's something I hadn't heard.  Since I posted this, I've spoken with a few people who worked directly with TuneCore.  They said the company was unorganized and had an inexperienced staff who could be difficult at times.  I also heard that one board member was pleasant and easy to deal with when nothing was getting done through staffers.  The old adage may hold here:  There are two sides to every story and then the truth.

Zoe Keating Asks ASCAP To Show Her The Money

Whenever I hear about artists (those that are not in the top 200 grossing artists of the year) not getting their fair share of their performance/songwriting royalties, it points back to ASCAP.  I don't read about too much injustice from BMI or SESAC.

Techdirt points us to a blog by Zoe Keating.  She, as an informed musician, actually broke down her settlement from a live performance. The promoter deducted $86 as an ASCAP payment.  She never sees that money in her ASCAP statements.  She called ASCAP to find out how she can claim that money and was told, "there was nothing for me to claim. He informed me that ASCAP pays out performing royalties only to the 200 top-grossing concert tours, as determined by Pollstar."  How do they determine what to pay the songwriter if he/she doesn't tour?  Does your song have to be performed by one of those top 200 grossing artists?

In some venues, even if you are not registered with ASCAP, the venue is and they still deduct the money.   Why is ASCAP set up this way?

According to ASCAP's website:

A music creator is like a small business, and ASCAP exists to ensure that music creators are paid promptly when their works are performed publicly.  ... ASCAP is committed to nurturing music makers throughout their careers.

It does not specifically state that you have to gross X amount of money before they will consider making a prompt payment.  If you add up all those $86 contributions day in and day out, over thousands of venues, there is a lot of money going to ASCAP.  It seems like in 2012 there should be a legitimate tracking system that could be put in place to pay out royalties properly, especially if the artist is being diligent about submitting song lists, etc as Zoe has. 

If anyone has the answer, let me and the thousands of musicians who'd love to get their piece of their pie, in on the royalty payment secret.

Kenny Rogers Caught In A Joe Vs The Volcano Audit

Kenny Rogers has sued Capitol Records for failing to pay him his owed royalties. TechDirt has a piece on the ordeal.

Rogers originally performed an audit, which took more than a year to get going with Capitol. On many levels he found royalties that weren't paid, some put into a "suspended file", over-charges for a music video, etc. When his negotiations to get paid, went nowhere (in the middle of the ordeal, he found out that people he was working had left the label) and he felt he was being led down a black hole, he sued the label.

He was also questioning where all the money the label received in the settlement suits with companies such as Napster, Kazaa, AudioGalaxy and Grokster went. That money was suppose to be shared with the artists. No one would let him in on where the money was stashed.

The sad thing about this whole process is that Rogers is probably doling out tons of money to accountants and lawyers to get him what should be rightfully his. Unfortunately this "accounting" has been going on since the beginning of the legacy labels. Transparency has never been part of their business practices. I'm in the Gambler's corner. I hope this one pays off.

Major Labels Still Using Payola The Same Old Way

TechDirt alerted me to a post by the former president of Rykodisc, George Howard on TuneCore's blog.  As George points out, radio is the last stronghold for the major labels, meaning it's the last place they have some "control".   Getting most records on the radio involves lots of money, hiring "consultants" and being a part of the good old boys network, which still exists and has not been cracked in over 50 years.

In my experience the route to getting a song played on radio has not changed in many years.  It started in the late 80's and was in full swing by the 90's.  George explains the process:

Getting a song “added” to a station’s playlist to get a certain number of plays per week involves a rather byzantine process that brings in various parties, called independent promoters (“indies”).  These “indies” are first paid by the label.  It’s important to note that the money the indies receive isn’t necessarily compensation paid directly to them for getting Program Directors to get a song played.  Rather, they work more like an intermediary to pass the label’s money to the radio station. These indies, with the money paid to them from the labels, pay the radio station money for various listener give-aways, bumper stickers and so on. To top it off,  these very same indies are often also paid a second time by the stations themselves as a consultant to advise the stations on what songs they should play.

This is essentially why very few indie artists are heard on any format other than college radio (there are consultants for that format also).  They have a better chance of being struck by lightening than hearing themselves on Top 40 radio.  The majors have the most money and are tied in to the good old boys network.  If indies have the money, they don't belong to the network.

What George didn't touch on was the cost to the artists.  All this promotion money/payola is recoupable by the artist.  It goes to their bottom line.  It explains why Vertical Horizon had a big hit with Everything You Want and got paid nothing in royalties from their record label.    When I was working with the band, the album had sold about 1.4 million units and the band hadn't seen a penny in royalties.  The flip side of this is you are so happy a label has gotten behind you and is pushing you, that you ignore it as the spread sheet numbers keeps adding up.  It did make them a profitable touring band and the songwriters got nice publishing checks.   As an artist you weigh the outcome.



Things are much different now than 15 years ago.  There are other ways to be heard than on the radio.  The good news for artists is they have access to all of them. 

Movie Studios (Again) Ignore Recent Music Biz History

Redbox, is a service that is essentially a red box vending machine found at supermarkets, etc where a person can rent movies for as cheap as $1 a day. It's very popular and it generates income for the movie studios. It looks like the movie studios don't want people to continue to use this service on the same level they were used to. A story in TechDirt points out that Redbox finally caved into Warner Bros crazy demand that they not rent films until 28 days after the DVD is released. This is similar to the deal that Warner's made with Netflix recently. Essentially what Warner is trying to do in a very short sided way is make the consumer BUY the DVD if they want to see it as soon as it's released.

This is another completely misguided, uniformed (I say uninformed because these companies are not listening to the consumer, whom they depend on) decision by a media company. The NY Times website is going back to a limited paywall. When people are used to getting something one way for a very long time, such as renting a DVD the day it's released, not paying for the NY Times online, there is no way to go back to the well to try and find water when it's bone dry. I have a strong feeling that these decisions will come back to bite both Warner's and the NY Times.

Why is it so hard for media companies to embrace the consumer? Why do they treat them like the enemy? The recorded music industry has been alienating fans for too long now and look where it's gotten them. We rarely hear from the musicians, actors and journalists whose livelihood is most affected by it all. These companies should all take a page from indie musicians who are making a respectable living connecting with their audience and being creative about how they generate income (while giving the fans something they want). Read Marian Call's blog.

Lily Allen: FIle Sharing is Bad

This story has been heavily covered online, so much so that Lily might actually become a household name in the States, where so far she's had limited exposure as a musician. She has a blog (which as I am writing, has no posts on it. She says she's putting down site since there has been too much abuse.) where she has been pontificating that illegal file sharing is bad. Other musicians have weighed in on this, including Elton John, who seems to be conflicted on the issue. Isn't she a little late to the table? Hasn't this been going on for years? Other artists like Amanda Palmer, Trent Reznor, Radiohead, etc have been embracing file sharing, twitter, the Internet, etc and having great results.

Techdirt points out that she may be an offender herself, worthy of a fine or being arrested. She has mixtapes posted on her website which contain free downloads of music other than her own. Her response to Techdirt: I made those mixtapes 5 years ago, i didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry back then... There was plenty of time to take them down.

TechDirt challenged the artists whose files Joel Tenenbaum had shared over the Internet to comment on the case. Joel was sued by the RIAA, who won the first round. A Boston federal jury ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay $675,000—$22,500 per song—to the major record labels for willfully infringing 30 songs by downloading and distributing them over the KaZaA.

The TechDirt challenge would have no legal ramifications, but it would be interesting. The comments that stood out the most were those that thought so little of the musicians and their work. The tones were dismissive. Some forget that without the musicians, there are no files to download and there are no record companies and there is no RIAA.

Among the songs Joel downloaded were Nirvana's Come As You Are and Nine Inch Nails' The Perfect Drug. I haven't been able to find comments from Trent.