Warner Music Pitches ISP License To Universities
Warner Music Group’s Jim Griffen, who has been a vocal proponent of blanket music licensing at the ISP level, is out pitching the idea to some of America’s top universities. Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of Washington, MIT, University of Colorado, University of Michigan, Cornell, Penn State, University of California at Berkeley and University of Virginia have expressed interest and talks are under way according to TechDirt who also dubbed the plan "pay-us-not-to-sue".
Here’s the basic slide presentation that has been used with the schools:
What do you think of this concept?
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WMG is not serious. Blanket licensing has been around for years when it comes to schools. American schools of all shapes and sizes have made annual payments to so-called Content Holders and their agents
directly and they don’t need WMG’s helping hand.
And why would we trust a company-made non -profit to audit and retrive our funds for us, and to do so in the most fiduciary way possible? I’m more than certain that WMG would make this newly minted Non-Prof have fat legs and endless admin cost.
WMG is just looking for easy cash instead of working at new talent, and they know all too well that writers, publishers, or so-called “Content Holders” don’t need their help. We are already greatly aided by professional guilds such as BMI/ASCAP,ect.. and we don’t need WMG’s greedy fingers more in the mix…..thank you.
How about having all internet content go thru the communication department at each school where all student-lead internet, digital content, along with all land-based radio content, can be logged and audited.
Those calculation can be handed over to a trusted agent …say the Harry Fox Agency (they been doing it for radio since 1927) and this agency will in short tell the guilds/content holders what is owed to them via the schools annual data.
Like in Radio today, all logs would be transparent and open for audit. In short, it would place a new deliver system over on old and proven system. It’s already there and has work very well. I’d be down with that.
PS. WMG is the big bad wolf that knows where everything is hidden. They are greedy and this is just a ploy. Here is their motivation: it should be noted that all colleges in the States put about 3-5% of each students tuition aside for student activities fees/entertainment fees/and or licensing fees and usage fee.
These student funded accounts can get very large. Each year these accounts are not spent-down, the remaining money is flipped to the next incoming class. The savings can build-up in no time at all and in most cases there is a lot of cash-in-them-hills and the labels know this.
In my small college alone, I was in charge of an entertainment account that had over 30 grand in it on any given day. That’s a lot of money for a school with less then 1000 full time students. WMG is starved for cash and the bigger the school…the bigger the pay-out. And labels know babies and candy are an easy steal.