RIAA Forgets to Make Royalty Payments 341
theodp writes "NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer agreed with the RIAA on one point - artists WERE being deprived of money that was rightfully theirs. But Spitzer managed to find $50 million for performers without shaking down grandmothers. Spitzer's culprits? A Who's Who of the nation's top recording companies - members of the RIAA - who failed to maintain contact with artists and stopped making required royalty payments."
Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
From the Article ( bold emphasis added):
While this will be great for a lot of artists I question the motive. I doubt that Eliot Spitzer is doing this for artists. I'm sure New York state will benefit from the interest revenue from "hold[ing] these monies. It won't hurt his career to have his name in the paper either.
Of course, I didn't bother to look up his record. Maybe he really is just doing his job, protecting the citizens of New York State.
Re:Motives (Score:4, Funny)
But who knows what else they're getting away with ?
Shaking down grandmothers makes life worth living !
Re:Motives (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Motives (Score:5, Funny)
If grandmothers are outlawed, only outlaws will have grandmothers !
Re:Motives (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Motives (Score:5, Funny)
Intercourse the RIAA.
Re:Motives (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Motives (Score:3, Informative)
He's really been doing a great job as the Attorney General, too. I'm sure you're right, though, that his days as Assistant DA in NYC were great, too.
Re:Motives (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember reading an article pondering the next New York governors race. It was decided that Spitzer would be the best Democratic candidate, as his poll numbers were around 60% . . . among Republicans.
I'm a conservative Republican, and I voted for him last time around.
Re:Motives (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Motives (Score:3, Interesting)
***disclaimer: you have the right to vote for whoever you want.....democracy...one man one vote....equality...representation...my right to take the piss.***
But seriously , I am glad that you have voted for the person whom you respect and wish to lead you. I have always disliked the concept of a political party. I think democracy would work much better without them. Then we could spend much more time choosing people to r
Re:Pure As Driven Snow (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, he might make a great U.S. Attorney General for a populist President - except that NYC might not want to let him go, and he'd probably be assassinated by some big-business interest before he was allowed anywhere near that level of influence...
Re:Motives (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Motives (Score:4, Interesting)
So, how does New York prove which money is theirs to hold? New York holding money would do little good for someone who's living in Alaska or Hawii.
Re:Motives (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting question. I'd think that NY state would have to prove the artist is a resident, which means providing an address, which would mean the artist's location is known, which means the record label can pay the artist his/her royalties, which would mean NY wouldn't get to hold the money. Of course they might only have to show that NY was the artist's last known address.
Re:Motives (Score:3, Insightful)
It is cleverly disguised, but it is there. In saying the *RIAA* is at fault, that is like saying that all software developers abuse their power simply because Microsoft does. The RIAA is not the music industry. It is an association of music industry corporations. It doesn't run the companies nor does it collect the fees. It helps make certain that the fees can be collected in some instances where their stakeholders feel they need to do s
Re:Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
Withholding money from Dave Matthews may have been more than an oversight. After-all, he's spoken out more than once about royalty free music for the masses.
Otherwise I agree that the RIAA is marginally different from the individual publishers it represents.
Re:Motives (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Motives (Score:4, Funny)
I claim it! The article doesn't say the claim has to be substantiated. And everyone knows that some random newspaper quote can be legally binding in the hands of a madman.
Re:Motives (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, NY has a pretty advanced system for getting people in touch with their lost money [state.ny.us]
Why NY? Devil's advocate. (Score:3, Interesting)
So, I wake up from a five year coma. I go looking for my royalty checks, and am told that they are being held by the state.
So, I go down to the Comptroller's office in Lincoln and ask where my money is. They tell me it must be some other state. Well, my brother is in Florida... I'll call there. Nope. Oh, yeah, my mom in Arizona, maybe it's that state. Nope.
Why would my money be in New
Re:Why NY? Devil's advocate. (Score:4, Informative)
The money goes to the state where the entity collecting the money is based.
What if I live in Nebraska?
If they can't find you to send you the money, how would they know to send it to Nebraska?
Re:Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
Spitzer has been doing an AWESOME job.
I don't think it's any secret that he has political aspirations -- even if you ask him -- but that doesn't change the fact that he has been going after the wall street crooks WAY harder than the feds have. He has been nailing people left and right and sticking them for all he can.
We need more people like Spitzer around to go after the bullshit without being crazy like Ashcroft.
-davidu
Re:Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
If Kerry wins the Presidential election, I'm thinking that Spitzer has a good chance at being AG for the US.
Now that would give me a little more confidence in where the country is headed.
Re:Motives (Score:2)
Exercise:
1) Pick any generic beneficial public activity.
2) Identify the set of motives for performing it that are reasonably "beyond question".
3) Estimate the number of people embodying only those motives who have ever walked the earth.
4) Divide it into the number of people needed to accomplish the activity.
5) Stand back.
Re:Motives (Score:4, Informative)
Having the state hold onto unclaimed property is standard procedure is most states. For example contents of safe-deposit boxes are kept by the state for years. The states do their best to locate rightful owners but like most states the unclaimed property departments are understaffed and underfunded so they can't do exhaustive searchs. Also I think that governments are forbidden by law to use the property in any way. So they cannot invest the money.
An exception to unclaimed property is insurance money from a policy. The insurance companies hold onto these while searching for beneficiaries. They CAN invest the money while searching. In some states I think that they have to pay interest when the owner is found, but they don't have to pay all the interest gained.
Re:Motives (Score:2)
Well, somebody is going to benefit from having the royalty money salted away in the bank, and ya know, on the whole I think I'd prefer it to be New York State. Or d'you think the RIAA is handing over the interest revenue along with the overdue payments??
Re:Motives (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, he does work for the state of NY, after all.
In any case, these royalties should benefit either the copyright holder or, failing that, the state and not these distribution companies. So, this is a good thing.
The people g
Re:Motives (Score:5, Interesting)
So if he's doing this for political gain... great. Go nuts. If he's doing it to get chicks, let'er rip! If he's doing it because the voices in his head said it's the right thing to do then who am I to argue. Let him clean this shit up since no one else who is SUPPOSED to be doing it is.
Re:Motives (Score:3, Informative)
Disclaimer: I didn't read the article, probably it mentions this...
Actually, the part about this that seems a little funny is the "cannot be found" part of that excerpt. Two of the artists that "couldn't be found" were Dave Matthews and Dolly Parton. Putting aside for a moment the RIAA's claims that "extraorinary measures" were taken to locate the artists, how hard could the recording labels have been looking...? They have websites for God's sake! They give concerts regularly!
Hm. I wasn't mad when I sta
Re:Motives (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, to be fair, I think they're more accurately oligarchic bastards. They really don't seem to get the whole market economics thing.
Re:Motives (Score:5, Informative)
For example, if a person dies with no heirs and no will, that person's property reverts to the state under escheat. Consider what would happen without escheat: the person's property would fall into a legal black hole. It would have no owner and therefore no way of transferring ownership or assigning use rights to third parties.
Usually what happens is that the property in question is placed in escrow while a more in depth search for heirs is done. If the heirs can't be found everything will be sold at auction with the State keeping the proceeds.
AFAIK, the principle works the about the same in all areas outside real estate. IANAL. YMMV.
What I find amazing is that the record companies didn't put a reversion clause in their contracts. That is, if an artist or his/her heirs can't be found, the the royalties revert to the company.
Re:Motives (Score:3, Interesting)
For instance, how does this help the citizens of Tennessee - there are surely a great deal of unclaimed funds to people who live there?
Perhaps NY is only holding moneys for people who have family in NY or a last known address there, the article wasn't clear.
Certainly those whom are fans of Spitzer far outnumber his critics, so I have no doubt anymore that he's doing his job - I still have that gut feel
the "harm", huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh well. Good that they caught this. The artist do deserve their money.
Doesn't harm the industry at all ! (Score:2)
Until they got caught, this didn't hurt the music industry at all. It hurt the artists, yes. But the RIAA *IS* the music industry, and they were the benefactors of this "mistake".
So while I agree with your sentiment, I'd have to disagree with your statement.
Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
The RIAA is going out of there way to correct a royalty problem that may/may not have entirely been their fault. And the article makes it seem that it was the idea of an RIAA lawyer.
Just my 2 cents...
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA was collecting money on behalf of the artists. If they kept it without making much effort to track down the rightful owners, then that's theft as far as I'm concerned. Especially if they insist on calling 12yr old children thieves for swapping mp3s.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Their stance that they are fighting to see artists get paid is based on the theory that if they stop copyright violation, everyone will buy legitimate copies of the work and the record company will pay the artists. The RIAA is not actually writing checks out to Metallica, except perhaps for their promotional work.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
I mean if they can't find Dolly Parton then obviously they aren't looking too hard.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Sure, it sounds good now. But wait until the quarterly earnings are publicized. The RIAA will complain that earnings were mysteriously $50 Million under the projected earnings, and blame it all on piracy.
No no no. (Score:5, Funny)
That lie aside, the RIAA sucks. I'm glad I'm not a musician on an RIAA label, I would hate myself.
Re:No no no. (Score:2)
Hehehe. I was about to rant until I saw the bit about "that lie aside"...
But the RIAA strikes me like being no better than the taxman (or the Benefits gency in the UK).
TiggsAll too quick to contact you when they think you owe them money. But if you're intitled to any money from them then you'd best be prepared to put in a whole lot of effort.
Say it aint so! (Score:5, Funny)
Any hope of draconian fines? (Score:5, Interesting)
Friggin' corporate pirates should be MADE to pay their proper dues!
Re:Any hope of draconian fines? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if they're guilty of stealing from artists, like they claim P2P users are, then they should pay the same fines, shouldn't they?
Oh boy, it would be interesting to watch the RIAA lobby for that!
Re:Any hope of draconian fines? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Any hope of draconian fines? (Score:2)
If there was more than one incedent, I recommend nothing less than capital punishment.
...Hey, think of the artists.
Try to imagine: (Score:3, Funny)
Common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhh, what are you smoking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who says they haven't? You are making the assumption that the government believes that the rules apply equally to everyone. If that were the case, then Oprah Winfrey would have been fined or taken off the air for indecency. [nypost.com] Microsoft would have been punished under anti-trust laws and for illegally maintaining a monopoly. There are many many many other examples, these are just some of the more high profile ones.
The rules do not apply equally to everyone.
Where does the money go? (Score:5, Interesting)
Another question would be WHY the RIAA lost touch with these artists. Was it on purpose or accident?
Re:Where does the money go? (Score:2, Funny)
it was a terrible accident... the artist was not looking, and that big truck...
oh, all happened so suddenly, terrible accident i'm telling you.
Three little words... (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA members ripping off their artists is nothing new - it's been documented over and over and fucking over again. I'm sure some slashdotters can point to half a dozen articles written by artists who point out that, by the time the RIAA gets done doing the math on a "standard" industry contract, an even moderately sucessful artist winds up OWING a few thousand dollars to the label and is pretty much an indentured servant, because they can't jump labels to find a better deal by the terms of the contract.
What we REALLY need is for some court ruling to take all those fucking provisions, and declare them illegal. THEN when the RIAA cries about "artists" being deprived of money due to file sharing, I might give a rat's ass about their bullshit argument.
The man who fell to earth and back? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cat and Mouse (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure they're having trouble (Score:2, Interesting)
A digital robin hood am I, and through my uploading I give to the poor.
Lost track of these artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm....how exactly do you lose track of your prominent artists? And for that matter, why aren't the agents of these artists banging down the doors at Sony, BMI, Vivendi, EMI, and so forth to get the royalties? IOW, the agents conveniently forgot to collect? Something doesn't sound right here -- when in the history of business has someone not aggressively pursued their debtors?
Re:Lost track of these artists? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course as things usually are on
compared to cd sales decline (Score:5, Insightful)
Therefore, according to RIAA, piracy accounted for 200 million in sales loss. Therefore (unless artists get 25% or more of retail) with this announcement of withholding 50m in royalties from artists, the RIAA itself is personally responsible for more monetary loss to artists than piracy.
Re:compared to cd sales decline (Score:3, Insightful)
Forgive the offtopiccage, but wtf? That's 0.6% not 7.5%. Those are the figures quoted in the article, too, no typos. No wonder these clowns managed to lose $50M with those kinds of math skills...
Re:compared to cd sales decline (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to see a comparison of all the years between 1999 and 2003 for sales decreases, number of releases, average age of the buyer, and the cost of a CD. Then, I'd like to see that cross-referenced with the recession in the economy, including such factors as unemployment rates, average income per household, etc. After you have all that, cross-reference all that with what the RIAA claims it's lost from file sharing. I can almost guarantee you it's nothing even near what they're claiming, and any decrease in sales has been just as drastic as any other major industry in the country.
Re:compared to cd sales decline (Score:3, Informative)
Re:compared to cd sales decline (Score:4, Interesting)
Not at all. Your missing dollars are added to the "loss of sales due to piracy" column.
Re:compared to cd sales decline (Score:3, Interesting)
Fair points. I'll add a couple more things to consider.
A centralized system like Napster is far more effective than what exists now. When Napster got squashed, it certainly created a market of sorts for all these distributed, decentralized P2P applications. However, that decentralized has an averse affect on the selection and efficiency of the sys
Agreed to comply? (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't know you had to 'agree' with a law before it was applicable to you. Interesting.
Re:Agreed to comply? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure you do, in New York, at least. Only a little earlier I was reading how the well-known "email marketing mogul", Scott Richter, is "agreeing to abide by a new federal anti-spam law" [rockymountainnews.com] as a part of a settlement with A.G. Spitzer. Nice to see he's making these naughty people promise to be good in future.
Re:Agreed to comply? (Score:3, Interesting)
NY = 1 state = 50million "lost"
Other = 49 States = 50 * 49 = 2.45 billion?
Even if the percentage is lower, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Note: I'm not american, but doesn't this sound at least reasonable?
$50 million in cheated royalties? (Score:5, Interesting)
Two wrongs do not make a right (Score:2, Insightful)
If yes, do you then have the right to criticize the RIAA?
The fact is, RIAA's actions, though despicable, are ultimately irrelevant to whether or not it is morally acceptable, and/or should be legally acceptable, to copy and distribute someone else's work without authorization, contract or payment arrangement. T
Re:Two wrongs do not make a right (Score:3, Insightful)
Never. Even when I had to sell personal property to avoid it, I made a point of honoring my debts on the appointed date. And I am not a fat-rich-corp-guy like the RIAA. In other words: even if I had answered "yes", probably it would have been "because I couldn't, since didn't have the money". Do you think the
No, but two wrights make an airplane (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't make a claim about filesharing on moral grounds if your own morals are suspect.
If you're a crook, its hard to take cries of "thief" very seriously.
Then not only should the RIAA make sure they are (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anyone suprised (Score:4, Funny)
"Hello, kettle it's the pot, line 2, he's says your black"
cluge
Lying about the lies that they lied about (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of reminds of me of some bigger (cough - Catholic Church) examples (cough - US war effort).
I'm sure that last bit will get me slammed. There goes my karma =D
Not the RIAA: more FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
To pre-empt any ad-hominem replies: I do not like the RIAA's tactics & I was once signed to one of the companies mentioned (BMG). But claiming this is an RIAA act is entirely incorrect, self gratifying FUD, and as we all know, spouting crap in lieu of facts does not make a convincing case. If you want to criticize a system, learn how the system works first.
Found one! (Score:3, Funny)
Try looking here [dollywood.com]
Hilarious! (Score:4, Insightful)
Disingeneous Article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Disingeneous Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read the list of some of the artists they lost contact details for, they included long forgotten one hit wonders like "David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Harry Belafonte, Liza Minnelli, Dave Matthews, Sean Combs and Gloria Estefan". Now if you believe they couldn't contact these people then you'll believe anything. It's just a typical out of court where the guilty party pays up and in return get to deny all blame i.e. the RIAA are good guys stuff in document is only for the consumption of the legal system and fools.
Re:Disingeneous Article (Score:3, Informative)
Additionally, neither the term "RIAA" or "Recording Industry Association of America" was mentioned in the press release.
This Rolling Stone article [rollingstone.com] also neglects to mention the term "RIAA" but does cover some of the amounts owed:
"For some, the payout amounts to a drop in the bucket. The Dave Matthews Band is owed just over $14,000 (its 1996 album, Crash, for instance earned $4,000 that wasn't properly paid), while the $10,700 that Bowie was owed was just for 1997's Earthling. And for other artists, the
Why the RIAA fears the internet (Score:5, Informative)
RIAA and Organized Crime (Score:3, Funny)
Change in My Tactics (Score:5, Interesting)
I love music, and used to spend a lot on buying new CDs before this RIAA shakedown started. Stories like this, however, have made me change my ways, and now I buy exactly $0's worth from any label that supports the RIAA [boycott-riaa.com].
It's appalling to think that this is all done defending artists from file sharers when their watchdog is either this clueless or dishonest...with the RIAA, it's hard to tell which.
Artists might fare better if they could see an alternative to this corporate mire. Perhaps if they understood that consumers would be more supportive of the music if there was some reasonable guarantee that money would actually get to the artist rather than a conglomerate?
Granted I have no guarantee of that with [fatpossum.com] my [secretlycanadian.com] current [dimmak.com] label selections, but I feel better knowing that my cash isn't feeding the anti-piracy machine.
Fucking-Un-Believable! (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't blame the RIAA -- it's easy to forget. (Score:5, Interesting)
And sometimes I also forget that I don't need to buy a CD in order to determine whether I like the music. P2P has been gracious enough to keep reminding me of this whenever I feel the urge to go to the nearest Virgin Megastore..........
How do you NOT find Dolly Parton (Score:4, Funny)
Let's not forget the obligatory:
1. Charge people waaayyyyy too much for plastic, shiny disks
2. "Accidentally" lose track of famous artists, one of which lives in a huge amusement park that a 3 year old from Japan could locate
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!!!! YEAH baby, YEAH!!
*rinse* *lather* *repeat*
John "Dripping with Irony"
Re:How do you NOT find Dolly Parton (Score:3, Informative)
Ummmm, I think you have a bug in your shampooing code.
The other side of the coin (Score:4, Insightful)
I submit that Dolly has far better terms than some relatively unknown/new/crap band, and probably does rather well with mechanical royalties, and other royalties than the unknown/new/crap band.
IOW, Dolly is most likely making money in areas that an unknown/new/crap band would not, such as printed sheet music, covers by other artists, film and television, and public performance (musak, etc.).
That said, it's not surprising that the whore-tards in the RIAA wanted to 'misplace' those extra dollars; what is surprising is that the missing artists' lawyers weren't all over those nickels and dimes in the first place - especially Dolly's lawyers. She likes the money.
Even more reason to bypass the RIAA. What you lose in enforcement (public performances, radio play) and marketing, you gain in knowing that you are getting the best deal as an artist.
Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Both David Lindley and Courtney Love have spoken out eloquently against them in the past. I think we should remember who the real villains are here - and that they're not 13yos with a few songs on a hard drive.
Re:Abandoned Property? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Abandoned Property? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Abandoned Property? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Abandoned Property? (Score:2)
Speaking of, I can understand if a record company lost track of a band that put out one single in the 60's but how the hell do you loose track of David Bowie? Not to mention, how do you loose track of David Bowie's attorney's and accountants?
Considering that according to the article, the recording industry initiated this project and that it goes above and beyond what the law requires, it feels l
Re:Abandoned Property? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Abandoned Property? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I worked for the Recording Industry Association of America? Then gosh, I would call up the record companies that are members and funders of my organization and say, "Hi, Vigin? It's Bob at RIAA. I need to get ahold of David Bowie. Yeah, he's under B. Sure, I'll wait."
I'm guessing that since they do millions of dollars worth of business with him, they'll have some idea of how to get ahold of him.
This might not always be easy to do and might be time consuming per artist.
Did you note the part about $50 million? If they put that in a regular bank account, they can get $1m per year in interest. So it's not like they couldn't find the funds to hire a clerk to look into this. Their, "Gosh, honey, look at this $50 million I found under the couch cusions," line is not particularly plausible.
Re:What is with the hatred? (Score:2)
The same is not true of the RIAA
Re:They're still crooks (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure where you're getting your facts, but what you've relayed is not correct.
The funds do not go to the CRIA. They go to the CPCC, the Canadian Private Copying Collective. The CPCC is a non-profit organization, and most importantly, the CPCC is not the CRIA.
The record companies are among the recipients of the money that the CPCC hands out. As in the US, they get a small portion (15%), with the majority going directly to composers and publishers (66%) and performers (18%). In the case of the compo