Alexandra Johansson

Music libraries re-titling copyrighted works

Portlandia is a hit comedy series based in the City of Portland (Oregon,USA). The show’s star  and producer is SNL funny guy Fred Armisen. The song playing in the background in the above clip ‘I’ll Take You There’ was composed/performed/produced by a couple of my musician friends in a band called Easy Access Orchestra. One of the guys heard through the grapevine purely by accident that their music was played on Portlandia. The show is a smash US hit series, yet my friend had not received any licensing fees or royalties despite being members of the PRS and its US equivalent BMI. They came to me probably because  I’m getting my degree in commercial music and currently taking a music business and legal affairs course .  I offered to investigate and help track down the music royalties. The result was quite interesting

I also chased royalties for Easy Access Orchestra’s copyrighted music used in another US TV series—The Americans. I tracked the music to this particular episode called ‘Gregory’ (Season 1, Episode 3).  It’s not easy. All I had to go on was the song title ‘My Only Love’ by Dust (aka Easy Access). In a perfect world, BMI (US equivalent of PRS) would have distributed royalties via PRS, but unfortunately that hasn’t happened. The guys have a manager/publisher — everything you’d expect from experienced musicians in the business, but regardless, these things happen and royalties sometimes do just ‘fall through the cracks. I also received an email from the Senior VP, Business and Legal Affairs from the company that produces Portlandia. 

Chasing music royalties for Portlandia and The Americans has been a huge eye-opener for me. This experience has shown me the significant obstacles facing composers and musicians’ whose music appear in television and film. Understandably in the world of media, music is a vital part of sound-for-picture.  The independent music libraries encompass songs numbering in the thousands (APM, Warner-Chappell).

Through sheer determination in tracing royalties I’ve discovered the murky and seedy side of the business (surprise, surprise) including the lowdown on the massive sonic libraries where composers’ copyrighted works’ end up. Original song titles are often changed and different artists’ credited to music scores and compositions. Collecting the royalties sometimes takes years. In the US, the PMA is another one of the non-profit organisations supposed to protect the rights and interests of publishers and composers for use in film and TV yet the new chairman of PMA also is the CEO of Warner/Chappell.

The Easy Access Orchestra has been around for a long time so understandably their music is out there. What I’m discovering is their songs are being re-titled. As the number of production music catalogues and creators are multiplying –so is the retitling of their tracks.  In Portlandia- Series 1 Episode 1- their copyrighted song ‘I’ll Take You There’ was retitled to ‘Follow Me’.  In the ‘The Americans’  their song ‘My Only Love’ was re-titled to ‘Treasure Each Moment’.

Scary—this is actually legal in the US – promoted as a way of getting the same song in multiple non-exclusive libraries but it creates sheer chaos and confusion in distributing revenue. So who really makes out? Not my friends who composed the music.  Portlandia is in its 4th season and still no royalties or licencing fees from music played from season 1.

The executive director of  PMA  said during an interview in October:

“We have been very vocal about the destructive nature of “retitling” of musical works, and have worked tirelessly to uphold the integrity and value of copyrights.  We look forward to working more closely with our international counterparts to help ensure the viability of our industry on a worldwide basis.” (www.sonicscoop.com)

 “Make a Band Famous” Competition - Live-Stream Battle of the Bands Competition

For those unsigned bands out there that want to become famous, check out this live-streaming competition. “Make a Band Famous” Republic Records and US cable channel VH1 have partnered in a competition for unsigned bands. The competition is titled “Make a Band Famous”.  The around-the-clock battle takes place on its digital platforms. 24 bands will compete over 24 hours with the last band standing getting a contract with Republic Records as well as the band being showcased the following day (12 June) at  the Northside Festival in Brooklyn. I'm not usually an advocate of talent shows like The Voice and American Idol for the fast path to stardom. This competition is different. In my opinion, it is about the talent and promotion of emerging artists with lots of hard work.

The host of the event is Tyson Ritter from the band All-American Rejects. The live streaming starts on 11 June exactly at 20:00 EST/17:00PT on VH1.com and the VH1 App.   According to Rick Krim,  the VP of talent at VH1,  “The whole goal of this is to make the band famous.”   He tells Billboard that it’s not a singing competition, but is somebody is a singer/songwriter, they will qualify—it needs to be someone who is able to perform.  After the application process closes on the 15th of May the 24 bands will be selected. The bands will be based at a location in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood and be given challenges throughout Williamsburg and McCarren Park in Greenpoint. The event will be broadcast with  uncut and uncensored streams for the entire 24 hours. This allows viewers to see live performances, interviews and other behind-the-scenes footage.The band that wins will also perform at  the Knitting Factory on June 12  for Brooklyn’s Northside Festival.    The winning band will also be featured on ‘You Oughta Know’, which is all about exposing and breaking  new artists.   

The competition opened up on 1st May.  Entrants can enter via the website  MakeABandFamous.VH1.com through  midnight on the 15th May .  All entries will be accepted until Thursday, May 15th and all entries will be viewable at MakeABandFamous.VH1.com and MABF.VH1.com. On 5 June VH1 announce the bands that are the successful 24 finalists who will make their way to NYC on the 11th June 11th, and 24 hours later, one band will emerge as the winner.  To enter, unsigned musical acts have to submit a 15-second video clip of an original, unpublished song on Instagram using the hashtag #MABF as well as the band's name with a hashtag (#YourBandName).

The impact of digital music trends is a current hot topic in the world of music.  I’ve seen a lot in the news lately about crowdfunding—and more specifically the Kickstarter.  The use of digital technology, production and delivery of music has undergone revolutionary changes.  Musicians can now raise millions of dollars (or pounds) for their projects.  Musicians hoping to release their debut album usually lack the financial resources for funding.  Enter crowdfunding—a way to let artists petition to get finances by way of pledges to support their project.  The pledge could be towards a debut album,   music video or breakout tour. Crowdfunding is not a new concept. If you had a time machine and went back to the days of  Mozart and Beethoven you’d see that these great artists also funded their projects in similar manner. Although large patrons helped fund their works, these old masters also relied on the smaller patrons to solicit money from. In return, the subscribers as they were called would benefit by a copy of their work, etc.. Fast forward to today. Kickstarter’s model is on a much grander scale but the basics are there. Its  popularity has grown due to websites such as Kickstarter, and Indiegogo.  With crowdfunding, smaller amounts of money—sometimes as little as $1—are raised by larger quantities of people.  It all adds up.  Crowdfunded transactions totalled more than $5 billion in 2013. The Crowdfunding Industry Report projects that in 2014, transactions could exceed $10 billion.  

Since Kickstarter was launched in 2009, 6.1 million people have pledged $1 billion, funding 60,000 creative projects (kickstarters.com).  Cloudfunding is used by filmmakers, artists, designers, musicians, etc.  The creator also has complete control over their particular project using Kickstarter as the platform.  People can  pledge money to make a project happen. For example, projects on Kickstarter have to reach their funding. This is an all-or-nothing approach. The project itself could be an album debut.   Creators maintain 100 perrcent  ownership of their work. Although backers help to support the project, they do no profit financially. Rather in the case of a writer, supporters might get a copy of a book. For musicians, it could be a free CD or  premier ticket to a performance.

Seeing that I love vinyl records, how could I possibly miss RSD (Record Sale Day) when it’s only 20 minutes on the central line from my home in east London to Soho. Smack in the heart of Soho and steps from Chinatown is Berwick Street, renowned for the concentration of independent record stores with amazing collections of vinyl—new and old. Berwick Street has an outdoor market that has been around since the 1830s. Once a year, the neighbourhood becomes a thriving eclectic event celebrating LPs and the independent record stores. Since the 1980s, some of the top record stores such as Sister Ray, Reckless Records and the Music and Video Exchange have made Berwick Street their home.  Black Market Records and Phonica are only streets away nearby.

RSD showcased some amazing talent from a wide spectrum of genres—rock, punk, folk, reggae and electronica.  The festival had its outdoor stage at the corner of Berwick and D’Arby and you could barely walk through the crowds of people. The concept behind RSD is to attract new customers to independent record shops. In 2013, vinyl sales doubled from the prior year with 780,000 LPs sold—the highest figure since 1997. Vinyl is on a comeback and not just for vinyl retro lovers.

It’s interesting to see who actually buys LPs—the long play or 33⅓ rpm microgroove vinyl records.    I was curious as to who seeks out vinyl and my research shows that 18 to 24-year-olds’ are the biggest age group buying vinyl today, although the crowd at RSD was made up of an incredibly diverse group.  So why the popularity of the vinyl record? There’s no app for it, it’s not convenient to carry around, and you can’t play it on your iPhone, download it or even stream it. Yet, the vinyl record niche market is rapidly growing with sales of LPs increasing last year. Despite this growth, no doubt it is still a niche market. According to Billboard magazine, vinyl record sales “represent 2% of overall album sales.” However, the sales have been on a steady increase while digital song downloads on iTunes Stores have declined (Nielsen Soundscan).  Although vinyl record sales “account for only a small fraction of the overall industry revenues” there’s been an increase over the past few years in major market including the US and the UK. According to IFPI, vinyl sales increased in the US by 32 per cent in 2013 (Nielsen Soundscan), and in the UK, they increased by 101 per cent in 2013 (BPI)” (source: ifpi.org).

I watched a really interesting programme on BBC 4 last night called “The Richest Songs in the World”.  Why is this so interesting? For those who follow me, you may already know that I am a singer/songwriter based in London.  We see all the time on programmes like The Voice, America’s Got Talent and American Idol. Hungry (and sometimes) talented artists look for their big break –wanting to become the next super pop star or band mostly by performing covers. That leads to the notion where many believe that the bands and artists performing the music are the ones that rake in the money.   To the realty show hopefuls doing cover versions of songs, the BBC 4 show may be a realty check.  The BBC programme presented by Mark Radcliffe highlighted the top ten classic songs which have earned the most money of all time.  As there isn't an exact science to this, the figures are largely estimated earnings. On that note The top earners are:

 1.  Hill Sisters –"Happy Birthday" (1893)  est.  $50 million

2.  Irving Berlin – "White Christmas" (1940). est.  $36 million

3.  Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Phil Specter – "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin" (1964). Est. earnings: $32 million

4.  John Lennon and Paul McCartney – "Yesterday" (1965). Estimated earnings: $30 million

5.  Alex North & Hy Zaret – "Unchained Melody" (1955). Est. earnings: $27.5 million

6.  Ben E King, Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller – "Stand By Me" (1961). Est. earnings: $27 million

7.  Haven Gillespie & Fred J Coots – "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (1934). Estimated earnings: $25 million

9.  Roy Orbison & Bill Dees – "Oh Pretty Woman" (1964). Estimated earnings: $19.75 million

10. Mel Torme – "The Christmas Song" (1944). Estimated earnings: $19 million.

Musicians make less than a penny per stream on Spotify

                 As growth figures seem to indicate—consumers love music streaming services. Pandora and Spotify are hugely popular and growing. Recent figures show Pandora at 69.5 million users and Spotify with 24 million. Pandora and Spotify shareholders’ are really raking in the money while the artists are receiving a pittance depending on who you talk to. The fast growth of the music-streaming industry has raised a lot of questions over music royalties for artists and music rights holders.  Spotify is one of the top music streaming companies. Its 2012 revenue was over $590 million with 24 million+ users.   However, many say that artists are getting a raw deal.

Thom Yorke of Radiohead pulled his music and called for a boycott of Spotify on what he claims is unfair payment practices.  The  BBC recently ran a story about Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke who pulled his albums off of Spotify in protest of the meagre amount artists are paid. Yorke summed it up with one tweet @thomyorke — “Make no mistake new artists you discover on #Spotify will not get paid; meanwhile shareholders will shortly being rolling in it.  Simples.”

Other big names such as Led Zeppelin have also bypassed the music streaming giant. A New York Times’ article about music streaming and royalties provides a good picture of the realty.Below is the link to the full NYT article. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/business/media/streaming-shakes-up-music-industrys-model-for-royalties.html?_r=0

      According to the article, as a significant source of legally licensed music streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora have been embraced 'by an industry still buffeted by piracy.’ But as music streaming grows making the companies into multi-billion dollar enterprises, artists’ royalties slow to a trickle.   Zoe Keating is an American independent musician from California. In 2012, she provided a detailed analysis of her royalty earnings.  She  posted voluminous spreadsheets to her Tumblr documenting the amount of royalties she receives.  The numbers show the bleak reality of what it’s like to be a working musician in the digital age of music streaming.  

After Keating’s songs had been played more than 1.5 million times on Pandora over six months, she earned only $1,652.74. On Spotify, 131,000 plays last year netted just $547.71, or an average of 0.42 cent a play.

In the UK, British singer/songwriter Sam Duckworth also had 4,685 ‘plays’on Spotify which only earned him £20. Sam suggested that he would have made the same amount on the sale of 2 CDs at a show.