SoundExchange Claims To Open Up
Found on Techdirt on Monday, 28 December 2009
Why the government has granted exclusive rights to this industry group to collect and distribute money to musicians is troubling enough. But it's made worse by the fact that if SoundExchange "can't find" musicians to give the money to, it gets to keep the money.
As we've seen over and over again, many of these collections societies use sampling and counting methods that greatly overvalue big stars (who need the money less) at the expense of up-and-coming artists.
Of course it's not really interesting to search for someone to give money to if you're allowed to keep it as long as you can't find that person. Only a lobbied (bribed) politican can come up with support for such an idea.