EMI has sued the free streaming music service Grooveshark today, accusing the site of facilitating copyright infringement.
Says Grooveshark:
For the past year, Grooveshark has been in talks with EMI Records and other copyright holders to negotiate licensing agreements for the use of their content. We are pleased to announce that over the past few months Grooveshark successfully ... [ read the full article ]
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Quote:For the past year, Grooveshark has been in talks with EMI Records and other copyright holders to negotiate licensing agreements for the use of their content.
what a joke if payola wasn't bad enough to destroy indie competition you have this:
"With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. '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 ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'"
Quote: With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not.
SoundExchange isn't the RIAA and vice versa. They do have a working relationship, however they are not the same entity, even if you climb up the ladder.
However, internet stations CAN stop paying licensing fees if they ONLY play artists that are: Not Signed, not signed with a RIAA Label (there are a TON of indie labels signed with the RIAA), or signed to independent labels that due not work with soundexchange or any other P.R.O (Performance Rights Organization)
99% of what a station can legally play w/o paying royalties are related to EDM.
