Post by Michael-Andros Trueheart on Dec 18, 2007 23:32:52 GMT -5
p2pnet new view | Music:- SoundExchange threw a party for underprivileged lobbyists and Congressional staffers last week. On Wednesday night, they hosted the waifs and orphans who could help convince our elected representatives that artists really, really, really, need high Internet webcasting royalties.
I’ll bet it is the first time a lot of those kids have seen the inside of the “trendy” D.C. nightclub Ibeza.
To be fair, SoundExchange wasn’t the only sponsor. Those other two well known humanitarian organizations, the RIAA and the MPAA, pitched in to make sure everyone had a good time.
You might think the “artist representatives” on the SoundExchange board had to wonder what they were doing standing hand in hand with two trade organizations that aren’t well known for fair treatment of the actual creators of the product their members sell, but it is the Christmas season after all. Goodwill to men and all that.
At least it should be a bit more obvious (except maybe to those “artist representatives” which side of the bed SoundExchange normally sleeps on.
I do know there was at least one artist there. Wyclif Jean. He performed for the crowd. I doubt many other artists got invitations. None of my clients did. I know they really want to meet the “fun” (that’s what they call themselves) people who work so hard at SoundExchange. I know they want to congratulate in person the folks in who were able to find about 300 people out of over 8300 artists who were on the “unfound” list a year ago. The party would have been a good place for that to happen, if any of the “fun” SoundExchange staff would have actually recognized the artists.
And those 300 newly “found” artists really have something to celebrate this year. They didn’t get screwed over like the 8,000 SoundExchange hasn’t bothered to locate yet.
According to SoundExchange’s own website, less than 72 hours after the last lobbyist was ushered out the door with a pocket full of free shrimp thingytail, the artists still on that “unfound” list forfeited all the royalties they had earned for Internet broadcasts prior to October 31, 2002.
Last December, SoundExchange announced a forfeiture of royalties for broadcasts up until March 30, 2000, so they’ve moved up the clock two-and-a-half-years this time. I guess those charitable Christmas parties are getting more expensive.
But there wasn’t any question they would find enough money this time. SoundExchange claims the “average” artist receives $360 a year. That means that the 8,000 artists still on the “unfound” list each forfeited an average of $900 in royalty payments for that two-and-a-half years, or an aggregate $7,200,000. Not a bad Christmas present to give yourself, especially since SoundExchange didn’t have even try being “nice” to artists to get it.
Still, it is almost as if SoundExchange is ashamed of the whole forfeiture business. They can issue an avalanche of press releases about the Internet royalty rates, but except for a single reference in very small print on their own website, there hasn’t been a single word uttered in public about the December 15 forfeiture. If you didn’t know they were taking money, you would never know about it at all. You almost have to wonder why they bother to put the notice on the website for all the attention they drew to it.
I have a theory about that silence.
Under the regulation that allows SoundExchange to take that money by forfeiture, they can’t touch a dime unless the money has been in segregated trust accounts for three years.
Despite repeated inquiries, SoundExchange has never explained where those accounts are, or even if they exist.
I don’t think they CAN explain it, because all we know they’ve done, because it is all they will say, is to establish a “reserve” to pay royalty claims as new registrants come forward. A “reserve” is not a “segregated trust account.” A reserve means you move money from one pocket of your pants and put it in another pocket of the same pants, and you make a promise to yourself not to spend it. A segregated trust account means you give it to someone else to hold for you, and they don’t give it back to you, ever. They give it to the people who deserve it.
I have been asking about the trust accounts for more than six months.
John Simson refused to answer.
Mr thingy Huey refused to answer. Huey is a member of the Board of Directors who has declared that no one outside SoundExchange needs to know anything about what goes on inside SoundExchange and he’s not answering any questions (even though he promised p2pnet he would) because he’s working for a “better SoundExchange” from the inside.
We are going to have to trust that he’ll do a good job, too, because he isn’t going to tell anyone what he’s doing, either. You have to wonder if he’s up to the pressure, given that the only activity by Mr. Huey we know about was an anonymous and knowingly inaccurate personal attack on a SoundExchange critic. I guess we have to hope he will be better prepared for his work in the shadows than he was in spreading lies in public.
Another SoundExchange director refused to answer, too. That Director thought it was particularly rude of me to expect answers two months after he agreed the questions were relevant. You have to start wondering just what these Directors are doing at meetings when they don’t have ready answers to fundamental legal questions about SoundExchange operations and either can’t seem to get them from anyone, or just don’t want to admit they know what’s going on is wrong.
So instead of getting answers, 8,000 artists get a bill for a party they weren’t invited to.
They don’t have to worry about paying the bill, though, since SoundExchange has already picked their pockets.
Fred Wilhelms - p2pnet
[If the corporate music industry had any ethics, Wilhelms would be its ‘ethicist-in-chief,’ wrote CounterPunch’s Dave Marsh. Wilhelms is an entertainment attorney based in Nashville, Tennessee. You can contact him at fred.wilhelms @ gmail.com.]
www.p2pnet.net/story/14375
I’ll bet it is the first time a lot of those kids have seen the inside of the “trendy” D.C. nightclub Ibeza.
To be fair, SoundExchange wasn’t the only sponsor. Those other two well known humanitarian organizations, the RIAA and the MPAA, pitched in to make sure everyone had a good time.
You might think the “artist representatives” on the SoundExchange board had to wonder what they were doing standing hand in hand with two trade organizations that aren’t well known for fair treatment of the actual creators of the product their members sell, but it is the Christmas season after all. Goodwill to men and all that.
At least it should be a bit more obvious (except maybe to those “artist representatives” which side of the bed SoundExchange normally sleeps on.
I do know there was at least one artist there. Wyclif Jean. He performed for the crowd. I doubt many other artists got invitations. None of my clients did. I know they really want to meet the “fun” (that’s what they call themselves) people who work so hard at SoundExchange. I know they want to congratulate in person the folks in who were able to find about 300 people out of over 8300 artists who were on the “unfound” list a year ago. The party would have been a good place for that to happen, if any of the “fun” SoundExchange staff would have actually recognized the artists.
And those 300 newly “found” artists really have something to celebrate this year. They didn’t get screwed over like the 8,000 SoundExchange hasn’t bothered to locate yet.
According to SoundExchange’s own website, less than 72 hours after the last lobbyist was ushered out the door with a pocket full of free shrimp thingytail, the artists still on that “unfound” list forfeited all the royalties they had earned for Internet broadcasts prior to October 31, 2002.
Last December, SoundExchange announced a forfeiture of royalties for broadcasts up until March 30, 2000, so they’ve moved up the clock two-and-a-half-years this time. I guess those charitable Christmas parties are getting more expensive.
But there wasn’t any question they would find enough money this time. SoundExchange claims the “average” artist receives $360 a year. That means that the 8,000 artists still on the “unfound” list each forfeited an average of $900 in royalty payments for that two-and-a-half years, or an aggregate $7,200,000. Not a bad Christmas present to give yourself, especially since SoundExchange didn’t have even try being “nice” to artists to get it.
Still, it is almost as if SoundExchange is ashamed of the whole forfeiture business. They can issue an avalanche of press releases about the Internet royalty rates, but except for a single reference in very small print on their own website, there hasn’t been a single word uttered in public about the December 15 forfeiture. If you didn’t know they were taking money, you would never know about it at all. You almost have to wonder why they bother to put the notice on the website for all the attention they drew to it.
I have a theory about that silence.
Under the regulation that allows SoundExchange to take that money by forfeiture, they can’t touch a dime unless the money has been in segregated trust accounts for three years.
Despite repeated inquiries, SoundExchange has never explained where those accounts are, or even if they exist.
I don’t think they CAN explain it, because all we know they’ve done, because it is all they will say, is to establish a “reserve” to pay royalty claims as new registrants come forward. A “reserve” is not a “segregated trust account.” A reserve means you move money from one pocket of your pants and put it in another pocket of the same pants, and you make a promise to yourself not to spend it. A segregated trust account means you give it to someone else to hold for you, and they don’t give it back to you, ever. They give it to the people who deserve it.
I have been asking about the trust accounts for more than six months.
John Simson refused to answer.
Mr thingy Huey refused to answer. Huey is a member of the Board of Directors who has declared that no one outside SoundExchange needs to know anything about what goes on inside SoundExchange and he’s not answering any questions (even though he promised p2pnet he would) because he’s working for a “better SoundExchange” from the inside.
We are going to have to trust that he’ll do a good job, too, because he isn’t going to tell anyone what he’s doing, either. You have to wonder if he’s up to the pressure, given that the only activity by Mr. Huey we know about was an anonymous and knowingly inaccurate personal attack on a SoundExchange critic. I guess we have to hope he will be better prepared for his work in the shadows than he was in spreading lies in public.
Another SoundExchange director refused to answer, too. That Director thought it was particularly rude of me to expect answers two months after he agreed the questions were relevant. You have to start wondering just what these Directors are doing at meetings when they don’t have ready answers to fundamental legal questions about SoundExchange operations and either can’t seem to get them from anyone, or just don’t want to admit they know what’s going on is wrong.
So instead of getting answers, 8,000 artists get a bill for a party they weren’t invited to.
They don’t have to worry about paying the bill, though, since SoundExchange has already picked their pockets.
Fred Wilhelms - p2pnet
[If the corporate music industry had any ethics, Wilhelms would be its ‘ethicist-in-chief,’ wrote CounterPunch’s Dave Marsh. Wilhelms is an entertainment attorney based in Nashville, Tennessee. You can contact him at fred.wilhelms @ gmail.com.]
www.p2pnet.net/story/14375