ASCAP Wants $’s For Embedded YouTube Videos
ASCAP sent a collection letter to Jason Calacanis seeking payment for YouTube videos embedded on his Mahalo site. Based on what the group told Valleywag, many music bloggers should also be concerned:
"ASCAP does not offer licenses to – or require licenses from – those who simply make their personal blogs available on purely noncommercial Web sites. Mahalo.com is a larger venture than simply a personal blog, and therefore ASCAP is engaged in discussions with Mr. Calacanis concerning the use of ASCAP members' music on the site."It's not the first time that ASCAP has sent such letters. So far YouTube has told recipients to refer the group back to them. But recently a judge ruled Google owed ASCAP $1.6 million and a court battle coninues. But how long will Google continue to defend bloggers who post thousands of videos woith music daily?
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What?! If ASCAP is in litigation with YouTube regarding sync/performance royalties, what basis is there for pursuing individual users of the videos? If ASCAP’s position is that YouTube should pony up (as one might reasonably believe), are they not essentially trying to double-dip by pursuing those who embed the videos?
When ASCAP recently took up NMPA’s ridiculous argument that ringtones are public performances, I thought they’d completely gone batty. This YouTube strategy confirms it.
A lot of our clients are ASCAP members and I otherwise think highly of the organization. However, perhaps its time the ASCAP membership let it be known that this sort of advocacy is unwelcome.
Its a tough call. ASCAP is bound to manage its clients performance rights to the best of its ability. I’m sure there are members who don’t approve of their sometimes aggressive tactics, but on the other side of the coin if they do nothing there will be other members who cry foul. It’s a tight competition between the PROs…always a game of who is doing more.
ASCAP represents publishers. Regardless of how music is distributed, where and by whom, publishers still expect and demand to get paid. It’s just unfortunate that organizations like ASCAP have to do the dirty work on behalf of their publishers demands.
I have worked with music publishers for nearly a decade and it amazes me how so many of them are out of touch with what is going on in the industry. Case in point, I had one publisher accuse me of shortchanging him on recent royalties as his song sold many more copies 10 years ago on CD. Some publishers I have dealt with get in a real state and say “oh you want a license for one of those internet music download player things?”
Everyone blames the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI et al, when in fact it’s a majority of the publishers who are grumbling and demand the societies to put a stop to this evil digital distribution method.
Are BMI and SESAC not also in litigation with Google at this time? I would expect just about everybody to be knocking on google’s door.
As far as going after an individual blogger, that seems a like a costly and un-scalable strategy. First off, if a person’s blog has no commerce attached to it (ads etc) then why even bother? I’m all for collecting performance royalties. The artists are entitled but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. There are millions of blogs that produce no real revenue and have very little readership. I can’t imagine they’re going to try to collect from all of them. Google I’m sure will be coughing up something, rightfully so.
In the article it says “”ASCAP does not offer licenses to – or require licenses from – those who simply make their personal blogs available on purely noncommercial Web sites.” which obviously means they’re not going after people who aren’t making money. They’re just going after people who use these recordings to generate ad income.