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I have to try to publicize the very disturbing move by the Recording Industry Association of America and DiMA, the Digital Media Association, to try to slash the royalties paid to songwriters and publishers for the digital sale and performance of their music. Being a songwriter this subject is very important to me.

Historically one of the principal ways songwriters have made money is on the sale of physical recordings like records, tapes and CD’s. But with sales of physical copies of music on the decline and sales of digital copies of music on the increase the one thing that songwriters could count on was their 9.1 cents per unit sold, regardless of if it was digital or physical. Well, not anymore. Yesterday the Copyright Royalty Board began hearings to change this royalty rate to 5 cents per unit sold or less. And even worse, they are proposing to nearly eliminate the mechanical royalty paid to writers for the digital streaming of music, which I believe will be the future of digital music. One justification for the move is that record labels are getting hit hardest by the decline in physical CD sales while music publishers are continuing to make plenty of money.

I can understand this point somewhat if I put myself in some kind of “playground” mentality, but frankly, I don’t have much sympathy for anyone profiting off of music creation except for songwriters and artists. The whole industry could disappear for all I care as long as the art and the artists remained. What bothers me is that the RIAA and the DiMA are proposing something that will GREATLY compromise a songwriters ability to make a living, all because they don’t think it’s “fair” that they’re sitting aboard a sinking ship. Well, I’m sorry that “profiteering” in music isn’t working out for you guys as of late. Maybe since we’re on the “playground” here anyway, the RIAA and DiMA should have a time out in the corner and think about why it is they screwed up their chance to remain viable in the digital age.

Please support the efforts of the National Music Publisher’s Association. While I don’t really care about “publisher’s rights”, they are working on the side of songwriters, and since they have continued to do just fine financially they are really the only hope for protecting songwriter’s rights as well. Lord knows a bunch of broke songwriters aren’t going to be able to stand up to the RIAA.

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Hans Erik
Content Marketing Director
Hans AT Next2Friends DOT com