How can Bernie Sanders win? My hypothetical depends on people voting for him instead of saying "he can't win" and making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Which means he probably won't win. Because people are stupid.
So what you appear to be saying is that he should have asked someone for permission before making the song.
Who would that be exactly? Who is the gatekeeper for public racial self-reflection? Would he have to submit the entire lyrical content, or would just the idea suffice? Is there a form for that? Is there a certain percentage of revenues he must forego before it's considered "legit"?
No wonder there aren't more songs about this subject - the red tape must be horrendous.
Actually, if you actually pay attention to the lyrics, he's saying "you're (meaning he is) Iggy (as well as Miley and Elvis)," and then addressing exactly what the columnist above is crapping on, except that Macklemore is saying he understands why such a column would be written.
You've just actually proven that Royals' claim is true - Spotify itself isn't grabbing songs off the Internet and streaming them. Someone claiming to be the legal rights holder (and even major labels have been unclear on their rights to sound recordings actually licensed by artists) is giving the music to Spotify.
I can claim to own the bicycle I stole from you - if I fill out the requisite paperwork, the used bike shop can legally take it. If the owner comes in and finds it, the shop is out a bike but they don't have to go to court. Yet you believe that Spotify should be maintaining an office full of people somehow double-checking that the claimed rights holder is the actual rights holder, or they should be held legally liable?
Also, regardless of how fastidious Lowery is, the multinational company (Nippon Columbia) that owns the label (429 Records) that released most of the named tracks is likely the party that bulk-loaded his stuff to Spotify along with their other artists. But I don't see him naming them in the lawsuit - and ironically that could be what sinks the lawsuit, should it ever get to court.
And after reading the actual lawsuit, the real reason he's suing Spotify seems to be because he knows that if he were to simply go to them, ask for his owed royalties and tell them he refuses to license the sound recordings to them unless they give him a higher rate, Spotify would likely just pull the recordings and tell him to pound sand. I don't advocate for that, but it might be the reality.
Meanwhile, he hasn't said a word about his music on other services - and "Berkeley to Bakersfield" is still on Apple Music, as of today, so he hasn't asked them to pull it - did they negotiate with him alone, or do they just pay him what he feels is a more acceptable royalty?
From the label info on the iTunes Store, the copyright for the sound recordings named is held by "SLG LLC," or "Savoy Label Group," aka Nippon Columbia/429 Records, so I'm unsure whether Lowery is arguing that streaming is specifically not covered by his label deal (I can't find that in the lawsuit, but that would be grounds to sue the label too) or that since it's a "new frontier" it should bypass his label.
You've touched on a second timeless (well, since the late '70s) concept: that most independent artists somehow made a living on selling their music, like ever. Most indie albums were a vehicle to make extra merch sales at shows and get college radio play.
Indie labels and artists were screwed by distributors, the record chains and ASCAP and BMI (still by the latter two). Lucky were those who had a hit with an indie album (CVB was in fact one of the very luckiest, and they certainly didn't become millionaires).
I've been on both sides of the artist/industry fence, in those days and these days. While I'm hardly defending ANY of the label/media cartel, I'm merely reminding that holding up Spotify as some sort of special evil demon is kind of silly - they're just the low-hanging fruit. Lowery doesn't want to piss off the likes of ASCAP but feels fine taking on a smaller organization.
Clever - redirection from your incorrect "streaming is the 'sharing economy'" by picking a nit on the exact year that...something happened.
You have a brilliant future as a politician. The humorlessness helps too.
I'm not so sure you really understand what's going on here. No one is signing individual artist contracts, not for Spotify, not for terrestrial radio either. And very few get to do that for anything - the label owns their music.
Spotify gets music in bulk from labels - we're talking millions of songs. It's not always well-organized and there's no organization in the world that can track it all immediately. I can tell just by doing searches on Spotify that all the metadata isn't clear.
What you seem to be suggesting is that to stream, Spotify should go down a master song list, verify the individual rights holders for the recordings, and get their current addresses, then and only then putting that individual song up for streaming. Maybe by 2029 they'd have most of the catalog done.
At least he doesn't fall into the "indie artists used to make a living selling albums" trap that a lot of the anti-streaming crowd do. Irks me no end when people assume that. (The gardarmmed Beatles' original deal was one-quarter of one penny each for every single sold in England - half of that for US singles! I'd have hired Allen Klein myself!)
But it's great that today someone can self-release (double entendre partly intended) and do anything from give away their experiments (half the artists above) to make millions (if you're Radiohead).
You ARE aware that an artist's music doesn't have to be available on streaming sites?
If the artist signed a label deal that hosed them on the rights and payment for their music, Spotify isn't to blame.
This.
20 years ago, every musician complained about their label. "Behind The Music" was a broken record of bands who, after having a big hit album, discovered they weren't actually making any money.
The greatest part of streaming for the record labels is not only do they make most of the money, but their artists now blame Spotify for the fact that their artist's share doesn't amount to much.
By "Spotify *knows* it isn't paying out royalties to artists," you mean "Spotify keeps money in reserve in case unknown rights holders (from poorly labeled or mislabeled songs) come forward, so then they can pay them." And that difference means everything.
Streaming isn't exactly the "sharing economy." Also, the "sharing economy" topped out in about 2005.
We're already into the "gig economy." But no one will give David Lowery a gig, so he's got to do this to make money.
Comments