Jump to content

Op-Ed by Neil Diamond

Gil Bang

By Gil Bang
in Music

 Share

Recommended Posts

Gil Bang

Gil Bang 26229

Posted
Posted

Apologies if anybody thinks this is too political for this board, but I found it to be interesting.

 

 

Neil Diamond: Legacy musicians should be paid for their work

 
By NEIL DIAMOND
SEP 17, 2018 | 4:05 AM
  
 
Neil Diamond: Legacy musicians should be paid for their work
Neil Diamond performs at the Forum in 2017. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)
 
 

I often reflect on how fortunate I am: I’ve had an amazing career, and I’m deeply grateful for the fans who continue to find joy in the music I wrote and recorded. But when it comes to the recorded music part of the business, I’ve been surprised to learn that federal law discriminates against older artists like me, including the icons who inspired me to follow my passion and make music.

Let me explain. When you hear “Sweet Caroline,” my hit from 1968, on internet radio, satellite radio or a music channel on cable TV, those services can withhold certain royalty payments thanks to an obscure quirk in federal copyright law that predates digital radio altogether.

 
ADVERTISEMENT

Federal copyright law does not protect music recorded before 1972. Instead, “pre-’72” recordings are subject to a patchwork of state laws that amount to a legal obstacle course, both for artists like me and for digital radio services.

I have been fortunate to earn a living from touring and from the royalties I receive as a recording artist and songwriter through sales of vinyl, CDs and downloads — and, more recently, through on-demand streaming from digital services like Spotify and Apple Music.

 

But when my music is played on digital and satellite radio services, I receive a small amount of songwriting royalties, but no royalties as the recording artist.

Since sound recordings didn’t receive federal copyright protection until 1972, recordings made before 1972 are covered only under state law.

Share quote & link 

It’s a ridiculous state of affairs. When these services play my original recordings of “Red Red Wine” (1968) and “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” (1967), they aren’t required to pay a penny to me as the recording artist. Yet when great covers of those songs by UB40 and Urge Overkill are played on the very same services, those artists are paid, because their covers were recorded after 1972.

This bizarre quirk arose because, when Congress granted digital radio services a special federal license in the late 1990s, it covered only copyrighted recordings. Since sound recordings didn’t receive federal copyright protection until 1972, recordings made before 1972 are covered only under state law. As a result, some digital radio services have argued they were not required to pay for pre-’72 recordings at all. Years of litigation in state courts over the issue have inspired an effort to craft a solution that works for music creators and digital services alike.

If the law is left unchanged, countless great artists of the Motown era, the early days of rock ’n’ roll and the golden age of country may not earn royalties on many of their most omnipresent songs across digital radio. For some artists, those royalties could mean the difference between covering healthcare costs in retirement and spending their final years in poverty.

The issue hit home for me personally this year. In January, I reluctantly retired from touring on the advice of my doctors. It was a difficult but necessary decision. Touring takes a physical toll, and after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it was an element of my career I needed to let go, much as I love it.

Artists and musicians my age should be paid from profit-making services like these. I’m far more fortunate than most, I realize, but what about others? What about the icons of America’s musical heritage who inspire all of us, generation after generation, and whose creations enable these services to exist?

Fortunately, a bill in Congress called the Music Modernization Act would correct this inequity. The legislation would also update woefully arcane rules governing how songwriters are compensated and ensure that producers are rewarded for their contributions to sound recordings.

The House unanimously passed the bill, which is now pending in the full Senate. As of this writing, more than 70 senators have co-sponsored the legislation. I’m counting on Sens. Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to schedule a vote in the Senate and push this bill across the finish line.

It’s past time Congress address this issue and fix the pre-’72 loophole by passing the Music Modernization Act. We owe it to the icons and legacy recording artists who have given us so much, and upon whose shoulders I stand.

Neil Diamond is among the top 25 best-selling artists in the world with more than 30 studio albums and has been widely recognized as a leading songwriter, recording artist and performer. He has been inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 2011 he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28928

Posted
Posted

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/19/649611777/a-music-industry-peace-treaty-passes-unanimously-through-congress

A Music Industry Peace Treaty Passes Unanimously Through Congress

September 19, 20185:17 PM ET

On Tuesday evening, the Music Modernization Act (renamed the Orrin G. Hatch Music Modernization Act at the 23rd hour — in honor of the retiring Utah politician who also happens himself to own a platinum record), was passed unanimously in the Senate, as it was earlier this year by the House. In an age where political and artistic consensus is increasingly found only in cultural warrens populated by the like-minded, the bipartisan support of the bill is perhaps a small beacon of unity. (But still.)

"It is the most important piece of legislation in a generation to help make sure songwriters in our country are paid and are paid a fair market value for their work," Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander asserted on the floor of Congress following the bill's passage. The bill is essentially a music business peace treaty, designed to fix some very longstanding issues within it. It's the result of years of slow-moving compromise between tech companies like Spotify that rely on music (and wish to pay as little as possible for the privilege), entrenched music industry interests from major and independent labels to publishers and performance rights organizations, artists (who wish to get paid as much as possible from companies like Spotify) and the organizations that advocate for them.

For years, these largely at-odds entities have sparred over the tortuous system currently in place for the licensing of music, both songwriters' compositions— which are legally distinct from recordings and governed by rules established prior to World War I — as well as the money paid to songwriters for those licenses. Spotify, when it launched in 2011, did so without having an effective way to identify and pay songwriters for the millions of recordings of those compositions it was making available to its customers. And in the years since, as Spotify has grown into one of the world's most-valuable music companies, it has been sued for it many times. The introduction of the Music Modernization Act, this past December, actually accelerated the filing of a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Spotify over this problem, since that would cease to be an option after the first of this year, once the bill becomes law.

The compromise at the heart of the bill (which will now return to the House for approval of Senate amendments before making its way to the White House) is to provide a legal shield for companies like Spotify from these lawsuits and the large settlements that have accompanied them. Obviously the music industry has, along with everything else, evolved greatly in the century since these rules were established, but never has it changed as quickly as it has over the past decade or two. The Music Modernization Act is an attempt to repair the fissures created as the digital revolution bloomed, and to balance the interests of artists and the tech giants who need them.

To do so, it will establish a new quasi-governmental organization called the Mechanical Licensing Collective — at the expense of the digital music providers who will use it most — that will create and operate a comprehensive, public database containing all relevant information on songwriters' work, which tech companies will then use to (finally) pay songwriters properly. The bill also addresses the rates songwriters are actually paid for their work, which is... not a lot, as Sen. Alexander learned after contributing to the writing of a song with Nashville professionals.

"A few years ago, I was in my hometown of Maryville, Tenn.," he told the Senate, "I went into the drugstore, and as I was coming out, there was this older couple who was sitting in a pickup truck. I asked: How are y'all doing? The woman in the pickup truck said: 'We are just falling apart together.' It just so happened that over that weekend, my son, who is in the music business, had a group of songwriters at our home, and they were writing songs." After mentioning the story to his son, a song — "Falling Apart Together," from the country artist Lee Brice — was made from it. Money, however, was not, despite it having been played on Spotify alone over a million times to date. "According to Nashville's custom," Alexander continued, "I get a one-fourth royalty for the song whenever the song is played ... In 2016, I reported on my ethics form, which I file each year, that my royalties only added up to $101.75. That was for one-fourth of a record that was played on an album of a pretty well-known singer and writer."

Other than the Mechanical Licensing Collective, the new bill addresses some other longstanding points of contention. The somewhat shadowy Copyright Royalty Board — a panel of three judges responsible for setting some royalty rates, mostly related to radio-like services such as Pandora, where listeners can't pick from any song they'd like to hear — is now allowed to consider a song's value on the open market, what's called a "willing buyer, willing seller" provision, which should eventually mean more money for songwriters. In addition, performance rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI will now be able to argue their cases in front of a rotating cast of judges in the Southern District of New York, instead of having to repeat their case endlessly in front of the same two, as they have been for some time. The system will remain punishingly baroque, but the changes should also result in increased pay for songwriters down the line.

Despite the congressional unanimity it was met with, and the compromises required from all corners of the music industry to even introduce it, the Music Modernization Act didn't sail smoothly to yesterday's passage.

Just two days ago, a group of 150 artists, from Paul McCartney to Sia, issued a letter rebuking SiriusXM for attempting to derail the bill, as they saw it, over a provision that would close a loophole in the law over royalties of songs recorded before 1972. And earlier this year, the private equity firm Blackstone enlisted Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to try and introduce language protecting a subsidiary company from competitive danger.

"It was a very complicated exercise," Sen. Alexander explained on the Senate floor, "and it was in doubt until about an hour-and-a-half ago in terms of whether we would be able to do this tonight."

If the amended version of the bill passes the House, it will then go to the desk of President Donald Trump to be signed into law. Assuming there aren't any complications in that process, everyone involved, who spent all those years across the table from each other hammering out this significant compromise, can return to war. Just with new weapons.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Celery Man

Celery Man 21094

Posted
Posted

He’s not wrong but it’s a dumb argument to blur the lines between recording and songwriting as he seems to be doing in his bit about post 1972 recordings (covers) of his music. Unless I’m not understanding and he means that Spotify like streaming services don’t pay publishing royalties and only pay for recordings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...