by JIM BERGAMO/KVUE News
Posted on July 30, 2010 at 8:57 PM
Updated yesterday at 10:30 PM
It's a David versus Goliath ruling in federal court that could send shock waves and more money into the pockets of music artists and publishers around the world, and an Austin company is at the heart of it all.
"It's hard being an artist it's hard being a musician, let alone having other people make money off you, so it's an amazing thing," said Carlos Sosa, a Grammy Award-winning saxophonist.
The amazing thing Sosa is referring to is this week's federal court ruling in New York that changes the way music service providers pay royalty fees. Prior to Monday's ruling, businesses typically secured those rights through performing rights organizations like
BMI. But Austin-based music provider DMX had a better idea.
"We believed when we started this process that we could secure the public performance rights directly from the publishers for fees that were less than what BMI was asking us to pay," said Christopher Harrison, the attorney for DMX who argued the case in federal court.
DMX, which provides music to hundreds of thousands of stores, restaurants and other retail outlets across the country, now only has to pay BMI roughly half of what it was paying before.
"It's absolutely gratifying that a small company like DMX in little, old Austin, Texas was able to go to Manhattan and convince a federal judge that we were entitled to the relief that we sought," said Harrison.
DMX can now afford to pay the writers and publishers more for using their music. And that's music to the ears of musicians and artists like Sosa.
"Power to the artist. We have more control and we have more power. The money comes directly to us. I think it's going to set a really good precedent for a lot of things in the future," said Sosa.
This week's federal court ruling has enormous implication for much larger industries like radio and television, who pay tens, if not hundreds, of times the royalties that DMX pays.
BMI is considering it's options of whether to appeal the ruling.
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