A2IM: American Association of Independent Music

Posted in Member Services by A2IM

Royalty Evolution: Do You Know Where Your Music is Being Used? TuneSat Does

Gone are the dark days of the music industry, as TuneSat ushers in a new era of transparency and accountability. For the first time in the history of the music industry, TuneSat offers the ability to know exactly when and where your music is being performed on over 200 major TV stations in the US and Europe and — very soon — across the Internet utilizing the forthcoming Internet Content Tracker, thereby increasing your ability to ensure you get paid when your music is used.

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Posted in Advocacy, From The President by A2IM

The MTP Interview: Rich Bengloff, President A2IM

The YouTube decision of a lower court in New York emphasized that the “catch me if you can” interpretations of the U.S. Copyright Act “safe harbor” for infringement has created a “digital divide” of haves and have nots when it comes to the cost of enforcing rights against unscrupulous online companies. The head of the indie label organization, A2IM, discusses these and other issues with MTP.

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Posted in Advocacy by A2IM

The not-for-profit global independents licensing body, Merlin, offers an update on recent activities on behalf of their members. All A2IM label members are eligible to be Merlin members but you must register with them to become a member. Merlin membership costs nothing and obligates you to nothing. If you haven’t joined Merlin yet or have questions about what Merlin does, please read this update or contact A2IM to discuss.

Posted in Advocacy, From The President by A2IM

There have been two recent court decisions, UMG Recordings V. VEOH and Viacom V. YouTube, which have interpreted Congress’ 1990’s DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) so that the onus of filtering/preventing unauthorized content on the internet will be the responsibility of the copyright owner, not the service allowing access to the music. Simply put it allows a service like YouTube to allow any user to put up any user generated content on their service without having the rights. This then requires the music label creator community to have to monitor for infringements, send cease and desist notices to YouTube or any other service, re-monitor for infringements and then, if necessary, litigate. One of your A2IM board members noted that in the physical goods world, distributors who ‘distribute’ something they have no legal right to are generally called thieves and noted that YouTube is sort of like the pawnshop owner who sells stolen jewelry and says “How was I supposed to know it was stolen”? or to the person who rents a booth at the flea market to the sellers of stolen goods and then says “I’m not responsible.” The bottom line is our community does not have the resources to become internet police so A2IM is actively supporting the appeal of these court interpretations of DMCA decisions by filing Amicus briefs and also working with our creator allies.

This week Rich Bengloff responded on behalf of A2IM’s independent music label members to a June 29th LA Times editorial which applauded a New York district court decision dismissing a claim that YouTube turns a blind eye to copyright infringements. The Times’ editorial board wrote that “for the Internet to work, YouTube can’t be required to police its network…” A2IM opines in response: for independent creators to continue contributing great music for fans we must be fairly compensated and not be forced to spend our time playing Internet Cop. Read both the original LA Times editorial and A2IM’s responding letter to the editor that was published on July 1st.

A2IM Letter To The Editor: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-0702-bengloff-20100701,0,5941892.story

Original LA Times Editorial: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-youtube-20100629,0,2290414.story

Posted in Advocacy by A2IM

As we have shared with you previously A2IM supports the need for a global solution to fight piracy and other copyright infringements. Here is the latest letter from our side asking our Government to support strong anti-piracy guidelines in response to a letter that was sent from organizations that  included the Consumer Electronics Association which wants to use our content for free under a “fair use” license.

Posted in From The President, Press Releases by A2IM

To all-

A commerce goal of A2IM is to achieve economic parity for our music label members. We strive for that every day in many ways. The purpose of this e-mail is to discuss economic parity for our associate members, professional service providers which should be rewarded for their support and equitable treatment of our member community.

A2IM associate members like Pandora, to name one, which is by far the #1 webcaster in terms of non-on demand music streams in the U.S. (and not coincidentally, they play the largest percentage of independent music, almost 40%) paid approximately $28 million in sound recording royalties for last year and, via SoundExchange, delivers parity to indie artists and labels.

Conversely, there are services like LimeWire, Myxer and many more that, by the nature of their services, make it too easy for consumers to violate copyright and/or compensate independents in a sub-standard fashion or not at all. Many services promise “promotion” in lieu of compensation (as recorded music sales continue to plummet, in part due to these services). In some cases services may also use the guise of user generated content databases containing our labels’ artists’ music as an excuse for any infringements. These services know that many of our music label members do not have the time and capital required to monitor the web for infringement nor to take the subsequent legal action.

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