Ladies and Gentlemen, we have an agreement.

News broke today that “pure play” webcasting services (i.e., the bigger online broadcasters who earn the bulk of their revenue through their services) have reached an agreement with SoundExchange — the nonprofit organization that collects and distributes the digital public performance royalty on behalf of performing artists and sound copyright owners (usually the labels). read more

Digital Music News recently ran an article called “The Gray Art of Counting Indie Sales,” which underlined the confusion of tallying purchases of downloads or CDs based on the music’s “independent” classification. According to the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), 32 percent of album sales in 2008 came from independent artists, but Nielsen Soundscan puts that number at 12.8 percent. Part of the difficulty in differentiating between an indie and a major the fact that many indie labels enter deals with distribution companies owned by the majors, such as ADA (95% owned by Warner) or Fontana (owned by Universal). As a result, major labels have a tendency “count the sales of their distributed partners, while indies like to downplay those partnerships,” according to DMN publisher Paul Resnikoff. read more

If you’re new to the whole concept of who gets paid when you hear a tune on terrestrial radio, here’s the situation in a nutshell:

Currently, when you hear a song on over-the-air broadcast radio in the US, the composer/songwriter/publisher are compensated for that "public performance" via ASCAP/BMI/SESAC, but the performer and record label are not. Meaning, if you hear Aretha Franklin’s classic version of "Respect" on the radio, the songwriter (in this case, Otis Redding’s estate) and the publisher receive payment; the Queen of Soul (and her label) do not receive any performance royalties. Check out our Public Performance Right fact sheet for more info. read more

Have you ever been scanning through the music rags at your local bookstore/music retailer/coffee emporium/tchotchke outlet and wondered, “why do I never hear this band that’s on the cover of all of these magazines on my local radio station?”

We’ve scratched our heads about this, too.

There are quite a few independent acts out there that are successful by pretty much any other measure — they sell out venues, play Saturday Night Live, can be heard on movie soundtracks, TV shows and commercials yet never seem to crack commercial radio playlists. After a while you start wondering if there’s a reason. Turns out there is – it’s just sort of complicated. read more

There’s been been a couple of online articles recently (that’s one shy of three, which almost makes a trend!) about what "do-it-yourself" means in the era of digital music. So we figured we’d do a little thinking out loud, then turn the floor over to the experts — in other words, you.

With the advent of user-friendly digital distro services, musicians now have a wide array of relatively inexpensive tools to get their tunes out there. Of course, with fewer gatekeepers and the "democratization" of technology, it also means you probably have to work harder to get noticed — there’s no slick suit who can make it magically happen for you. (And if there is, maybe s/he can give us a call?) read more

Yesterday (March 10, 2009), the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Public Performance Right for Sound Recordings, which featured testimony from folks on all sides of the issue, including one bona fide rock star (no, President Obama didn’t stop by).

Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins joined Mitch Bainwol (Chairman and CEO, RIAA), Paul Almeida (President, Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO), W. Lawrence Patrick (President, Patrick Communications), Stan Liebowitz, Ph.D. (Ashbel Smith Distinguished Professor of Managerial Economics, University of Texas at Dallas) and Steve Newbury (Chairman of the Radio Board, National Association of Broadcasters) to present their views on the Public Performance Right. read more

If you’ve been following FMC’s work, you’ve no doubt heard us talk about the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) — a forward-looking non-profit organization that represents a broad coalition of independent labels.

On January 15, A2IM President Rich Bengloff published An Indie Music Memo to the FCC: We Need a Level Playing Field Too at the Huffington Post. The article calls on the Commission to recognize the indie sector’s contribution to the music economy (around 30 percent of all domestic music sold), and says that access to the digital marketplace is crucial to indie artists and labels. That means net neutrality — the principle that protects the open internet — must be preserved. (For more info on net neutrality and the music community, visit FMC’s Rock the Net page.) read more