Rich Fiscus
2 Mar 2008 23:56
While there are some people opposed to RIAA royalty collection tactics and others who take the labels' side, one thing both sides generally agree on is the importance of paying artists. That is, of course, unless you count the labels themselves as representing their own side.
Last year RIAA member companies successfully negotiated deals with a number of websites whose operators had been accused of copyright infringement, giving them a windfall in royalties for use of their music. The problem is they apparently haven't bothered to share their newfound revenue with the artists whose music they're supposedly collecting royalties for.
"Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for," said lawyer John Branca, who has represented Korn, Don Henley, and The Rolling Stones, among others. "Some of them are even talking about filing lawsuits if they don't get paid soon."
Of course the labels say that the money was all but exhausted paying lawyers. On the other hand it's well known that all music label and movie studio deals have a net profit of $0 as a standard way to avoid paying percentages of the real profits to anyone.
Irving Azoff, manager for The Eagles and Jewel, among others, said "They will play hide and seek, but eventually will be forced to pay something." He added "The record companies have even tried to credit unrecouped accounts. It's never easy for an artist to get paid their fair share."
On the other hand, maybe the labels' accountants really aren't very good at math and couldn't figure out how much they needed to sue for. Or the lawyers were so inept that they didn't catch the mistake.
But really, even if both of those things are true and the labels don't have any money left over, shouldn't that be their own problem, rather than being passed along to parties with no voice at the negotiating table? Still, it would explain an awful lot that's happened recently.