mechanical royalties

The 29 Streams

Here at FMC, we tend to think a lot about changing business models for musicians. Certainly, many artists are still making the majority of their money from selling CDs, merch or playing gigs. Yet we’ve come to realize that musicians’ access to potential revenue — especially in today’s digital landscape — expands far beyond that.

Recently, FMC started ponder all this in a more organized fashion: just how many different ways are there for musicians to earn money? We’ve come up with 29 so far, which we list below. read more

CRB Day 2: Industry Reaction

By Ed Christman

Billboard.Biz

October 3, 2008

The music industry reacted favorably to the Copyright Royalty Board’s release Thursday of new mechanical royalty rates. The CRB left unchanged the per-song rate of 9.1 cents for physical product, set for the first time a statutory rate for permanent downloads of 9.1 cents (the same as the prevailing industry standard rate) and established a 24 cent rate for mastertone ringtones (mastertone royalty rates were previously negotiated and typically equaled about 10% of the retail price). A statement from Future of Music Coalition: “Future of Music Coalition is encouraged that the parties involved in the proceedings seem pleased with the decision, and looks forward to reading the entire CRB decision when it is made public.

Agreement Royale

On September 23, 2008, songwriters, publishers, record labels and digital music services announced they had reached an agreement on mechanical royalties for songs played on online music services. According to the agreement, limited download and interactive streaming services will pay a mechanical royalty of 10.5 percent of revenue, less any amounts owed for performance royalties. Called a ?breakthrough that will facilitate new ways to offer music to consumers online,? the voluntary agreement crafted by the Digital Media Association (DiMA), the National Music Publishers? Association (NMPA), the RIAA, the Nashville Songwriters Association International(NSAI) and the Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) ended a longstanding dispute about mechanical royalties for interactive streaming and limited downloads. This blog post explains what digital mechanical royalties are, and how this agreement affects musicians, music services and webcasters. read more

mechanical royalties

The 29 Streams

CRB Day 2: Industry Reaction

Agreement Royale

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