Is the RIAA Pulling a Scam on the Music Industry?

Found on Daily Kos on Saturday, 28 April 2007
Browse Internet

There has been an understandable public outcry against the RIAA's attempts to more than triple the sound recording copyright royalties on Internet radio.

One solution proposed by Webcasters is to just not play RIAA-member songs under the assumption that then they don't have to pay the royalty to the RIAA's collection body, SoundExchange; Webcasters would then just pay the independent artist the royalty.

However, the RIAA is not about being fair and just. The game is rigged and the RIAA has rigged it in their favor. The strategy of playing only non-RIAA songs won't work though because the RIAA has secured the right to collect royalties on all songs regardless of who controls the copyright.

SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free.

Even if you do own the copyright to your own recording of your own song, SoundExchange will collect Internet radio royalties for your song even if you don't want them to do so.

That's exactly why this whole system needs to be dropped. They collect royalties and simply keep them if the artists don't bother asking for it. And even if the copyright holder wants the money which SoundExchange made thanks to their work, but without their consent, they have to pay fees for that. So, basically SoundExchange uses other peoples work even without permission to make money. Some would call that piracy on a commercial scale.