A couple of articles I read recently—here’s the one I have a link to — say that despite all the furor the recording industry has raised over file sharing, downloads and now YouTube playing music without paying royalties, the artists aren’t seeing a dime.
According to the link above, managers for several artists say their clients haven’t seen a dime out of the YouTube settlements made a year and a half ago. Explanations offered by the industry are that YouTub isn’t generating much money, or it’s slow in paying, but since the record companies refuse to divulge any details of what the royalties are or how the deal is structured, it’s hard to tell.
Another article said the same problem has cropped up with the legal settlements over the various file-sharing programs: The program-makers coughed up money, but it’s not reaching the creators.
Or here’s something that happened last year that took my breath away: The Recording Industry Association of America established that anyone playing digital music, even if it’s on your own personal internet station, has to pay a royalty to RIAA. Of course, if you’re playing your own royalty, you get the money back … but RIAA won’t pay unless you sign up, fork over a fee and join the group first.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Injustice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.