Online Copyright Royalties
In the UK, a decision has just been reached regarding the standard rate of royalties musicians receive when they sell music through an online distribution channel: 8%.
Excuse me? You’re distributing material online with minimum expense, and as a retailer and distributor you’re not responsible for the marketing of the artist. But you retailers want to take 92% of the earnings just for stocking the shelves?
Musicians are the ones who spend their lives working their asses off to get the music heard in the first place, the ones who go to great effort to create a song in the first place, yet some men in suits would like the lion’s share when they’re nothing more than a conduit between artist and public.
Of course, retailers deserve some payment for their services. That’s a given. But this is nothing short than ripping artists to pieces and cheating them out of a livelihood. Online retailers are earning a passive income the same way Chinese manufacturers ship so much product; get someone else to do the work and then keep all the profits from that hard work.
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