British Musicians Revolt Over Rights
by
mark selfe
on
06 October 2008, 15:05
Categories:
Internet and Media
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International
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Internet
Topics:
music
,
apple
,
iTunes
,
Pink Floyd
,
digital downloading
,
Radiohead
,
CRB
,
Kate Nash
,
David Glimour
,
Robbie Williams
,
The Verve
The movement of musicians in the UK rocking against the corporate labels and the tech companies eager to grab as much cash as possible form the downloading phenomenon is gaining momentum.
Radiohead, Robbie Williams, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, The Verve and Kate Nash (pictured), are among those that have signed up to a new coalition body that will attempt to retain greater control over their musical wares.
It is almost a year since Radiohead defied convention by releasing their most recent and critically acclaimed album 'In Rainbows' online via their website and not through their former publisher EMI.
Many musicians are often never involved in online publishing deals and have little legal control over the royalties meanwhile performers often only hear about the deals after the fact.
The formation of the musicians coalition comes on the back of the CRB vote agreed last week by the new digital music publishers, including Apple's iTunes, not to increase the digital download royalies from 9.1 cents to 15 cents per track.
While it is likely that big-name acts with established audiences, such as Radiohead, will be able to survive without the big publishing labels, the smaller independent musicians and performers will still face the same problems. The new coalition group plans on act in the interest of all artists in their attempts to level the playing field and provide representation. The entity also wants to change copyright laws so that performers are also compensated as well as the songwriters.
Currently, when a song or track is played in the US in an Ad, or used in film or television show the author's and the publishers are paid, but the performers are not.