Billboard reported on A2IM’s U.S. Trade Representative filing fairly noting the A2IM perspective that “we honestly feel there is no other industry that has embraced new forms of economic and delivery models as completely as the music industry. Our members also, on their own terms, give away free content to reward existing fans and cultivate new fans of their label’s artists,” but at the same time the Billboard article notes that “Big Music gets the attention because it often takes the lead in piracy issues — because it has the most resources. Smaller companies don’t have the same resources. They may differ on the finer points of addressing piracy, but they’re firmly in the fight. As A2IM put it, piracy is not ‘a fight between Silicon Valley technology and the unfortunately shrinking Big Media Content industry,’ but rather ‘a fight for (small- and medium-sized music enterprises) that want to create intellectual property artistry that creates cultural diversity, innovation, jobs and exports.’”
U.S. Trade Representatives
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2012
Each year the U.S. Trade Representative’s (‘USTR”) office in Washington D.C. solicits comments on which foreign countries deny adequate and effective protection of Intellectual Property Rights (‘IPR”) and the effects of these failures on creators. The A2IM filing highlights how we rely upon the Internet as the great equalizer for our community’s ability to market, promote, monetize and introduce new music but that A2IM member music labels as small and medium sized businesses simply do not have the financial means or resources to engage in widespread copyright enforcement on the Internet and need some form of government assistance. We believe our filing is in line what we are hearing directly from our members plus public statements of our members, like those in the recent Pitchfork item where six of the seven labels quoted are A2IM members and note the need for some level of support against unauthorized unpaid content distribution. As the Pitchfork item also fairly notes A2IM has consistently been on record since last year as saying “No legislation is perfect, and improvements should be made where appropriate. But let’s have a debate that genuinely acknowledges that the voices within our entertainment family are deep, broad and diverse. And let’s all agree that doing nothing is not an option any Intellectual Property creators can live with.” The full A2IM filing text is here. We always welcome member comments and calls on this or any issues of importance to our community.
