Sony Lawsuit Over Online Royalties
Cheap Trick and The Allman Brothers, among other artists, have filed suit against Sony regarding practices related to royalties from online 'sales' of songs.
The suit is essentially about more fair royalties. Online sales don't have the same costs that pressing and shipping hard products will. The artists, therefore, are looking for a bigger piece of the pie.
Beyond this, though, the apparent need for Sony to change the rules to their own benefit at the expense of their customers and artists is a shame.
Artists' contracts generally stipulate one rate of royalty for sales of songs and a higher rate for song licenses. Licenses, of course, stipulate limited usage and no 'ownership' of the material.
Sony has historically taken a strong position that online purchases of tracks are not 'sales' in the traditional sense, but are licenses. Based on this, their position is that the purchaser of the license is not covered by all the rights of a purchaser.
For example, a concept like personal use, allowing a person to copy music from a CD they own and play the music on a different device for their own enjoyment, has no place in licensing. Much like software licensing, the terms are very specific as to how many devices you can use the program on and whether or not it may be legally copied for any reason.
Well, it seems that even though Sony's position is that online purchases are licenses and NOT traditional sales, the suit(s) allege that Sony is paying royalties for these online purchases at the lesser regular sales royalty rates.
Getting back to the article, this may only impact older artists, with contracts set up before the online sales alternative was a possibility. But as a consumer, ugh!
The suit is essentially about more fair royalties. Online sales don't have the same costs that pressing and shipping hard products will. The artists, therefore, are looking for a bigger piece of the pie.
Beyond this, though, the apparent need for Sony to change the rules to their own benefit at the expense of their customers and artists is a shame.
Artists' contracts generally stipulate one rate of royalty for sales of songs and a higher rate for song licenses. Licenses, of course, stipulate limited usage and no 'ownership' of the material.
Sony has historically taken a strong position that online purchases of tracks are not 'sales' in the traditional sense, but are licenses. Based on this, their position is that the purchaser of the license is not covered by all the rights of a purchaser.
For example, a concept like personal use, allowing a person to copy music from a CD they own and play the music on a different device for their own enjoyment, has no place in licensing. Much like software licensing, the terms are very specific as to how many devices you can use the program on and whether or not it may be legally copied for any reason.
Well, it seems that even though Sony's position is that online purchases are licenses and NOT traditional sales, the suit(s) allege that Sony is paying royalties for these online purchases at the lesser regular sales royalty rates.
Getting back to the article, this may only impact older artists, with contracts set up before the online sales alternative was a possibility. But as a consumer, ugh!
posted by Paul at 3:31 AM
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