Rights

Wez Saunders, who was recently announced as the company’s new CEO, has revealed plans to set a 30% minimum for digital royalty rates for any recording artist or producer within the label group. The majority of the electronic music-focused label’s roster already have rates of at least 30% but, according to the new plans, as of this month, a 30% minimum rate has become standard.

Source: Defected reveals new 30% minimum royalty rate

Louis Armstrong released “What a Wonderful World” in 1967, and the track eventually made its way to YouTube, like nearly every other recording, where it earns royalties for the single’s owner as well as its songwriters. For roughly a month in 2017, however, about $468 of the song’s publishing royalties made its way to the company Create Music Group, despite the fact that Create did not represent any of the parties involved in the song.

Source: Minimal Oversight and Few Obvious Repercussions Leave YouTube’s Royalty System Ripe for Abuse

Controlling in detail how we enjoy books, music or films is not what copyright is designed for. Copyright is supposed to be about rewarding artists fairly for their creativity. Modern copyright fails to do that. A 2018 survey by the Authors Guild revealed that median earnings from book income fell by 50%, from 2009′s $6,250, to $3,100 in 2017. In the music industry, a 2021 U.K. Parliament report found that performers’ incomes average less than the median wage.

Source: Why copyright is a bad fit for the internet age

One very clear indication that the market power story has merit is that last year, the Australian government made a significant change to policy to undo part of big tech’s bargaining leverage. If “the internet killed the news,” then changes to ad markets wouldn’t matter. But the result of the new law was a massive increase in journalism.

Source: Should Congress save newspapers from Google?

Proposed legislation that would force Big Tech to pay publishers for aggregating news content online stalled in the Judiciary Committee Thursday after an amendment introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz to prohibit censorship “collusion” narrowly passed, sharply dividing the bipartisan sponsors of the bill. “I don’t think we can support this bill anymore,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a co-sponsor of the bill. “I think the agreement that we had has been blown up.”

Source: Legislation to force Big Tech to pay publishers for online news ‘blown up’ by censorship amendment

Beatstar, a Guitar Hero-like mobile game that features global music hits, has shared $16 million of its revenue with music labels and publishers in the first year since its launch. Tested in beta in September 2020 and subsequently launched a year later, the app, now owned by Clash of Clans maker Supercell, has been downloaded 38 million times to date and has raked in$73 million in revenue, according to a company press release.

Source: Mobile rhythm game Beatstar paid out $16 million to music rightsholders in its first year

Quentin Tarantino and Miramax have reached a settlement over the auction of ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFTs in January. On Thursday, Miramax’s lawyers filed a brief statement in court, saying only that, “The parties have settled this case and expect to file their dismissal papers” within two weeks. “The parties have agreed to put this matter behind them and look forward to collaborating with each other on future projects, including possible NFTs,” the two sides said in a joint statement.

Source: Quentin Tarantino Settles With Miramax Over ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFT Auction

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is trying to clean up the messy state of crypto copyright. Last week, the company introduced what it dubs “Can’t Be Evil” licenses: a series of agreements that let creators grant non-fungible token owners partial or near-complete rights to NFT art. It’s fighting a problem many experts have called out — one that’s persistently undercut claims that NFTs let you “own” a work.

Source: Andreessen Horowitz wants to fix NFT copyright with its “Can’t Be Evil” license

The European Composer & Songwriter Alliance has welcomed a new report on the streaming market in Germany commissioned by German song rights collecting society GEMA which, it says, echoes many of the findings of the UK Parliament’s Economics Of Music Streaming inquiry. In particular, that “streaming is booming but music creators are far from getting a fair share from music streaming revenues”.

Source: ECSA says new GEMA study puts spotlight back on digital pie debate

The court has consolidated the copyright infringement lawsuits filed against Pandora by comics including George Lopez and Lewis Black. The much-publicized battle between comics and streaming services kicked off towards 2021’s conclusion, as organizations including Spoken Giants and Word Collections set out to secure compensation for their clients’ underlying compositions (not recordings themselves).

Source: Court Combines Comedians’ ‘Substantially’ Similar Pandora Suits