Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Who's the pirate now!?




I'm taking a break from the artist news today for some serious music news going down right now.

Universal, Warner, Sony BMG and EMI are being sued for piracy.

Seriously! The big 4 are being taken down by a group of Canadian artists who are taking a stance against the major labels using songs without permission, like putting a track on a compilation CD without asking the band first. The suit as it stands right now is over a huuuuge 300,000 tracks. That's $6 billion in damages.

The majors have actually admitted to owing $50 millon for artist infringement.
(full story)

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Now, let's open this up as a forum because I want to know your thoughts. Personally, I'm torn.

A: An artist should in fact have a say in what ways their songs are used. Absolutely. They retain rights, unless of course it is a work for hire, but we aren't taking about those. We are talking about bands, writing songs and not having a say in where those songs end up. That's wrong.

However!

B: It's a label's job to promote those songs. They sign an artist to market and promote that artist for record sales. Adding a track to a comp, commercial, video game, whatever is going to expose the artist to a variety of audiences. They will be heard- which can result in interest of the artist, and then in eventual album sales.

The relationship with bands and labels is continually changing. No doubt. I wonder what effect this can have on the entire label industry? Chime in.

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