RIAA Says Songwriters Overpaid by George Ziemann -- February 4, 2008 On Friday, the RIAA pitched their long-running sob story to the California State Legislature, voicing their concern for "the songwriters who pen the music and lyrics; the background musicians who perform it; the engineers who texture, layer and refine it; the artists who make it soar"? Meanwhile, on the East Coast, they are arguing that songwriters and publishers are ruining the music business. I guess that's why they're so concerned. If anyone is going to steal from the songwriters and artists, it's going to be them. The record labels have a long history of deciding that there is a limit to the number of songs they will pay mechanical royalties for on any given CD/album. Or, especially for artists that write their own material, that they're simply going to pay you less than the legal rate. Eliott von Buskirk over at Wired has today's version of the story. I'm only going to quote one sentence. "If you're a music fan, the worst thing in the world that could happen is if great songwriters stop writing music because they can't make a living," said David Israelite, president and CEO of the National Music Publishers' Association, which is pushing for a higher royalty rate. Buskirk sort of echoes that sentiment, which I understand. If you are going to pick sides in that fight, the RIAA is on the other side. If you think it through, the logic behind that train of thought is ludicrous. The record labels fired or bored to death all of the great songwriters. The ones that are still signed to the majors are there because they have enough leverage to get what they want. Or their contracts just haven't run out. Whatever scheme is decided upon, they are going to rake in a pile of dough from this NEW REVENUE STREAM ("new" as in "never existed before") because the great music lives forever. Ignoring all of that, my initial gut-level response is that the great songwriters stopped writing great music about 8 years ago. I haven't heard anything this century that qualifies as "great." There have been a few "very good" releases in the past year, but nothing that crosses into greatness has entered my pointy little ears. So "the worst thing in the world that could happen" already did. If songwriters can't make a living, it's because the publishers allowed the RIAA to get performance royalties for the sound recording (which has never before been paid in the U.S.) and then waited another five years before asking for the songwriting/publishing royalties (which have always been the ONLY performance royalties paid in the U.S.). The publishers have been big pals with the RIAA since Napster. The webcasters hated the RIAA, filed an antitrust suit against them. Now, the webcasters are teamed up with the RIAA to fight with the publishers. All so interesting, all so action-packed, with the future of music at stake, as always. This is, like, an official hearing, dude. Don't look too close or you'll realize that the whole idea of this mock battle is to make everyone overlook the simple fact that EMI, Warner, Sony/BMG and Universal are also the world's largest music publishers. No matter which side prevails at the copyright royalty board, the RIAA wins. At the end of the day, they still collect all the money and are trusted to dole it out to the appropriate parties, which they never do. It's a rigged game, which is the only game they play.