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| From | "Steve Turnidge" <stevet@arsdivina.com> |
| Subject | Re: SoundExchange Fiasco |
| Date | Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:32:46 -0800 |
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Dear Audities,
This is a little late, but informative regarding SoundExchange. Another list
I'm on had a full discussion of the SoundExchange "missing artist" list that
prompted an intelligent and informed reply from one of the SoundExchange
board members. I asked him if I could repost that here (with irrelevant
material edited out). He agreed that I could crosspost and it is below.
(Remember, this was in response to another list - nothing here to take
personally.)
From Dick Huey, Toolshed:
I am a SoundExchange board member, and have been since 2003. I represent
Matador Records on the SoundExchange board, one of the more highly respected
and completely independent record labels. I am on the new media committee
for the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) and have a
company, Toolshed, which handles various aspects of new media promotion and
strategy for many of the major independent labels, including Beggars Group,
Merge Records, Touch and Go, Asthmatic Kitty, Righteous Babe, spinART,
Saddle Creek, and many, many others. We also handle online promotion and
strategy for independent artists such as Kristin Hersh, Freedy Johnston,
Andy Partridge, etc. My entire music career has been spent working with
independent labels and artists.
The SoundExchange board is made up of nine label representatives (of which
three are independent label representatives), and nine artist
representatives. Key managers such as Michael Hausmann (Aimee Mann), and
Pat Rains (Jonatha Brooke) are board members. It is a relatively rare
occurrence to find an organization in which the major record companies
participate directly and where independent labels and artists have the
ability to outvote the majors. SoundExchange is a uniquely independent
organization that acts in the best interests of artists and labels, both of
whom it pays directly. I will personally attest to the fact that the major
record company representatives on the Board often endorse positions
favorable to the artist, in direct contradiction to the conventional wisdom
that the majors are always out to get the artist. Our very strong and
well-balanced board is able to effectively protect the best interests of
artists and labels, and where there is disagreement, the Board is balanced
and one side does not have a built-in advantage over the other.
Regarding the list of unpaid artists and your mischaracterization of the
list: To make your point, you casually and irresponsibly toss out the names
of well-known artists on the list that you say we can't find. The fact is,
because of our extensive outreach efforts, many well known artists have
received numerous pieces of mail, e-mail, or phone calls from SoundExchange
staff or from Board members, or we've been in touch with their
representatives. These particular artists remain on the list because they
are still unregistered, not necessarily because they have had no contact
from us. I will accept, on behalf of SoundExchange, the criticism that
this should have been made clearer when the list was posted...I believe
this would have saved a lot of misunderstanding, but nonetheless I believe
everyone at SoundExchange is pleased that posting the list has resulted in
additional contacts and names cleared off the list, which was the
intention!
In a majority of cases, well-known performers remain on this list because
their representatives (managers, lawyers, business managers) have not
confirmed a valid mailing address where SoundExchange can mail a check. I
can personally confirm this is the case with a number of managers and/or
attorneys for independent acts I have contacted in this regard. In the case
of group names, it frequently means that we've been able to confirm
addresses and payment information for some but not all of the group members.
In some cases, artists/labels/ managers/lawyers were simply putting off
filling out the SoundExchange paperwork. In some instances artists are
generally distrustful of "signing up" for distributions from a source they
didn't know existed. But if, for one reason or another, they do not choose
to register, there is nothing we can do, and they remain on the list.
Either you did not bother to investigate why well-known names are on this
list, or you chose to ignore these reasons in order to use this as an
example to advance your own personal agenda, whatever that may be.
Here are some facts about the list. Of the roughly 9,000 artists and
labels on the list, nearly 6,000 (about 66 %) have less than $50 due them
and less than 65 are due more than $500 (as of Fall 2006). Of these top
performers, half are not U.S. performers. Only five performers are owed
more than $1,000-three of these are non-U.S.-and the two U.S. performers
have been contacted on multiple occasions and yet they and their
representatives have failed to respond to our outreach. No performer or
label is due more than $1,500. The publicity generated in the industry and
our own outreach effort to a broad swath of industry databases, artist
organizations, and private companies, has resulted in more artists coming
forward and registering on a daily basis. Major progress is being made in
the effort to increase the number of SoundExchange registrants, which
currently sits at nearly 25,000 individual artists and record labels, all
completed in a historically extremely short period of 5 years (when
compared to the efforts of other collectives).
I have personally campaigned in the past to keep outside individuals from
inserting themselves into the revenue stream of SoundExchange payouts, and
this includes campaigning to keep SoundExchange payments from being
cross-collateralized or used as security for bigger advances. In my
opinion, this is critical to protect the integrity of an artist's deal
because once something like a SoundExchange digital royalty payment becomes
part of one artist's deal, it is entirely likely that it will become part of
every artist's deal and that is not acceptable. And I personally campaigned
to release the unpaid artist list itself, once we had done our own outreach
(again, to initiate as many direct relationships as possible without the
presence of a middleman), as did many other SoundExchange Board members.
In another misstatement you state "SoundExchange gets the unpaid artist
money". Under U.S. Copyright Office regulations, SoundExchange can use
unclaimed royalties to offset the costs incurred in the collection,
distribution, enforcement or establishment of statutory royalties. Cost
reduction will result in lower admin fees, and hence greater royalty
distribution to those artists and copyright owners registered with
SoundExchange, in arrears. And that is exactly what is happening.
John Simson and the rest of the SoundExchange management have done an
outstanding job of minimizing administration costs, which results in more
money going to artists. In fact, SoundExchange's overall administration
rates are lower than those on average by other artists' rights groups
worldwide.
Best wishes,
Dick Huey
Toolshed.biz
SoundExchange Board Member, representing Matador Records
-----Original Message-----
From: audities-owner@smoe.org [mailto:audities-owner@smoe.org] On Behalf Of
Samuel A. Rebelsky
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:20 AM
To: audities@smoe.org
Cc: Samuel Rebelsky
Subject: SoundExchange Fiasco
I don't recall seeing the following posted on Audities, but I'll
admit that I sometimes fall behind ...
SoundExchange, the RIAA-created body that collects license fees for
the digital distribution of recordings, is about to gain control of
the fees (up to 2000 or so) for a number of artists that they can't
rack down. An article on the situation can be found at
http://www.bigozine2.com/features06/FWexchange.html
The list of unpaid artists can be found at
http://63.236.111.137/jsp/unpaidArtistList.jsp
The depressing thing is that they clearly have not spent much effort
tracking people down. Famous artists appear on the list (Peter,
Paul, and Mary; the Replacements). A quick scan suggests that a
bunch of people discussed on this list also appear there (The
Plimsouls jumped out as one, but there are certainly others).
Anyway, I'm writing to encourage those of you who know artists on
that list to write to those artists. (The danger is that the artists
will hear from a bunch of people, but I'd guess that's okay.)
-- SamR
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