LEGAL NOTES SoundExchange Joins Music Community’s Call for ... · Chiquis Rivera speaks about...
Transcript of LEGAL NOTES SoundExchange Joins Music Community’s Call for ... · Chiquis Rivera speaks about...
June 7, 2016Vol 3 | Issue 4
www.soundexchange.com1
SoundExchange Joins Music Community’s Call for a Copyright Law that Works for Musicians
In April, SoundExchange and 18 other music organizations urged the U.S. Copyright Office to reform the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to stop the financial bleeding that recording artists and rights
owners suffer from as a result of outdated law.
YouTube and free ad-supported sites like it paid recording artists and record labels less in 2015 than they
earned from the sale of vinyl records, according to the New York Times.
Content owners face “an increasing onslaught of digital infringement,” the music community wrote in
In This IssueL E G A L N O T E S
SoundExchange Joins Music Community’s Call for a Copyright Law that Works for Musicians 1
How Low Can You Go? SoundExchange’s Administrative Rate Remains Under 5 Percent 3
M O N T H L Y T I P S & C U E S
Paying Music Creators is Our Primary Objective 4
O N T H E R O A D
SoundExchange, Artists Delve Into Issues During Billboard Latin Music Conference 5
Events 6
L E G A L N O T E S
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comments to the Copyright Office, placing the
burden on copyright owners rather than alleged
infringers to remove content. “[I]nstead of the
carefully balanced law passed by Congress, the
DMCA has now become a dysfunctional relic, not
suited to the realities of the 21st Century.”
The Copyright Office has acknowledged that
much has changed since Congress passed
the DMCA. Less than “5 percent of the world’s
population used the Internet, and bulletin board
services were the popular online platforms” when
the law took effect, according to the Copyright
Office.
The Copyright Office undertook a study to
evaluate the effectiveness of the safe harbor
provisions of the DMCA. When Congress passed the law 18 years ago, Internet service providers (ISPs)
were expected to work with copyright owners to address online copyright infringement. The copyright
owner would give “notice” to the ISP if the owner found his or her copyrighted material on a website
where it wasn’t authorized, and the ISP for that website would “take [it] down.” For ISPs who complied
with the “notice and take down” statutory requirement, the DMCA provided “safe harbor” limitations on
that ISP’s liability for copyright infringement.
Although this “safe harbor” might have made sense when Congress passed the DMCA, this “notice and
take down” regime no longer works for recording artists and rights owners. Specifically, SoundExchange
and its partners in the music community believe the DMCA’s “safe harbor” provision now acts as a shield
to services like YouTube from liability when users upload copyrighted material without permission.
The Copyright Office received over 92,000 comments on its study of the DMCA. The Office held public
roundtables in New York on May 2 and 3 and in San Francisco on May 12 and 13 to seek further input
on the study. While the office has no authority to change the law, it can issue a recommendation to a
congressional subcommittee that has been conducting a broader review of copyright law since 2013,
according to Bloomberg News.
L E G A L N O T E S
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How Low Can You Go? SoundExchange’s Administrative Rate Remains Under 5 Percent
Keeping SoundExchange organizationally lean, fiscally responsible and singularly focused on the
distribution of performance royalties allows us to keep our administrative rate below 5 percent.
As reported in our 2015 fiscal report, SoundExchange had an administrative rate of 4.6 percent that year.
The success story surrounding our low administrative rate has a lot to do with the fact that
SoundExchange is a digital native.
“We were established in the digital age to develop solutions for the global music community that boost
efficiency, accuracy and transparency,” SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe said. “We
are introducing new technology and using innovative new solutions to benefit the recording artists and
rights owners we fight for and to benefit the broader music community.”
SoundExchange has leveraged cloud computing to support new hardware and software developments that
have helped us improve all aspects of our internal operations, from royalty processing to financial reporting.
Our focus on innovation also led us to develop the SoundExchange ISRC Search Site, which is
helping all parties through improved tracking and reporting of sound recording usage. The database
includes nearly 20 million International Standard Recording Codes ( ISRCs) reported to SoundExchange,
and the initiative helps ensure fast, accurate identification of sound recordings and results in music
creators receiving prompt, accurate and fair compensation from the digital services that use their music.
In addition to our willingness to adapt scalable technology and our forward-thinking efforts to establish
new solutions and state of the art technology for the entire music community, our fiscal prudence
is an important element of the broad strategy to keep our administrative rate low. That prudence is
responsible for our commitment to keeping our costs as low as possible.
“We pride ourselves on running a lean, agile organization. We are the driving force behind that
philosophy, and our entire organization understands how important it is to remain focused on the
collection and distribution of royalties,” Huppe said.
Guided by principles of transparency, efficiency and accuracy, and singularly focused on being good
stewards of creators’ royalties, SoundExchange intends to maintain administrative rates that are among the
lowest in the industry.
L E G A L N O T E S
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At SoundExchange, we get phone calls and e-mails every day from recording artists and rights owners asking for assistance
on a range of issues. Our Monthly Tips & Cues will help you by providing useful answers to common questions.
Paying Music Creators is Our Primary Objective
Question: When am I getting paid?
Answer: SoundExchange is the only sound recording collective management organization in the world
to offer monthly payments!
We distribute royalties at the end of each month to those who are paid via direct deposit and have an
account balance of at least $100. We also pay quarterly (in March, June, September and December) to
anyone whose account is set up to receive direct deposit that has accrued at least $10, or to anyone
whose account is set up to receive a paper check that has accrued at least $100.
If you are registered and haven’t yet reached threshold to receive a payment, stay tuned because
we will pay you once you reach that amount. If you haven’t registered yet, it’s easy with our online
registration!
If you’d like to speak to a member of our Customer Service team specifically about your account,
our team is standing by. You can reach us by phone at (800) 961-2091 or by email at
[email protected] Monday through Friday from 9 am-6 pm ET.
.
We’re here to take care of the business side of things so you can focus on what you do best – creating
the music we all love.
M O N T H L Y T I P S & C U E S
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SoundExchange, Artists Delve Into Issues During Billboard Latin Music Conference
Latin recording artists benefit from the growth of
streaming, but more needs to be done to ensure
that music creators aren’t left behind.
SoundExchange President and CEO Michael
Huppe sat down with recording artists Chiquis
Rivera and Leslie Grace for a conversation about
digital music during the 2016 Billboard Latin Music
Conference in Miami.
Huppe, Rivera and Grace discussed how the shift to
streaming has benefited Latin artists. SoundExchange paid $56 million to Latin music recording artists
and rights holders in 2015, Huppe told The Miami Herald.
“Latin music is one of the music industry’s fastest growing segments,” Huppe said.
Huppe, Rivera and Grace also discussed how streaming services have the potential to help music
creators even more because Latinos rank among the most-savvy technology consumers in the country — 25
percent of Pandora listeners identified as Latin in 2015, the company said, with nearly 20 million unique
users per month. In addition, nearly 40 percent of Latinos listen every month, and Pandora is the top
streaming service among Latinos consumers, followed by YouTube, iHeartRadio and Vevo.
O N T H E R O A D
Chiquis Rivera speaks about receiving a check from SoundExchange.
SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe leads a discussion at the Billboard Latin Music Conference on April 27 in Miami with Chiquis Rivera, center, and Leslie Grace, right. (Photo credit: Nicole Pereira Photography for Billboard.)
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Increasing the royalties paid to Latin artists will require boosting registration and membership in
SoundExchange. To help, SoundExchange plans to unveil Spanish-language registration and provide a
fact sheet in Spanish.
“The digital revolution coupled with the increasing popularity of Latin music makes it imperative that we
make it as easy as possible for Latin artists to receive their royalties,” Huppe said.
Events
The Copyright Society of the USA Annual Meeting 2016
June 12-14
Boston, Mass.
A2IM Indie Week 2016
June 13-16
New York, N.Y.
O N T H E R O A D