Myspace to pay artists

Anyone read this article?: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/entertainmentmusicindustrymideminternet

Article is blocked at work. I'll check it out tonight.

Thats awesome! Great news for bands!

I better get paid! "Halloweeny" was a big hit for me. Haha.

myspace has always been a great tool for bands. now it will be even better.

I can't wait to retire on this money.

Temple of Blood wrote:

I can't wait to retire on this money.

REMEMBER ME!!!

I can't open the article. Where are they getting the money to pay them?

T-Roy wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

I can't wait to retire on this money.

REMEMBER ME!!!

No problem man. There'll be plenty to go around.

TheNazgul wrote:

I can't open the article. Where are they getting the money to pay them?

Here's the article:

CANNES, France (AFP) –

Social networking site MySpace, which has enabled many artists to launch their careers, is now helping to pay them back millions of dollars in "lost" royalties for songs and performances.

MySpace CEO Owen van Natta said Sunday the company had signed a ground-breaking deal with performance rights group SoundExchange to track down some 25,000 major, independent and unsigned artists owed more than 14 million dollars in unpaid royalties.

"The money will be put into escrow as we search for the acts," he said at the opening of the MIDEM industry trade fair, his first speech outside the United States. Van Natta said he planned to use the MySpace platform to put the artists in touch with SoundExchange, a non-profit-making performance rights organisation that collects royalties for the streaming of music on Internet/satellite radio on behalf of sound recording copyright owners.

The deal with MySpace opens up a new and effective way of contacting artists who are registered with MySpace but not with SoundExchange, the companies said in a press release.

"It can be a challenge notifying and convincing artists to register with SoundExchange because they don't know they're entitled to these royalties, or believe it's too good to be true," said SoundExchange senior executive Bryan Calhoun.

MySpace, which is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. group, has grown into a music power house under the guidance of van Natta, who talked at MIDEM about how he and his team
have worked to make it easier for users to find new music and share tracks.

This has resulted in users creating over 180 million playlists on MySpace Music, which van Natta said is now the largest advertising-supported music business on the Web. MySpace, which has been going head-to-head with its closest competitors, Facebook, to become the most popular social networking space, has also launched the career of many musicians, including that of British-born sensation Lily Allen.

That's great. I guess that means that a lot of underground bands will finally see some money.

That's great news!! The artists deserve to be paid.

nevermore wrote:

That's great news!! The artists deserve to be paid.

To be paid for what though? I can see artists wanting to be paid for their songs being used and uploaded by other members, but should the artist be paid for songs streamed from their own MySpace page? The site is free; they upload that music of their own free will. And it's all free for them. Should they be paid for that?

Eyesore wrote:

nevermore wrote:

That's great news!! The artists deserve to be paid.

To be paid for what though? I can see artists wanting to be paid for their songs being used and uploaded by other members, but should the artist be paid for songs streamed from their own MySpace page? The site is free; they upload that music of their own free will. And it's all free for them. Should they be paid for that?

Yes, for the songs being uploaded by others. I should have put that in my post.

nevermore wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

nevermore wrote:

That's great news!! The artists deserve to be paid.

To be paid for what though? I can see artists wanting to be paid for their songs being used and uploaded by other members, but should the artist be paid for songs streamed from their own MySpace page? The site is free; they upload that music of their own free will. And it's all free for them. Should they be paid for that?

Yes, for the songs being uploaded by others. I should have put that in my post.

There is the argument that visitors to these bands' pages are generating revenue for MySpace, thus they deserve a cut, but how does a company do the math on that? It'd be nearly impossible to do.

Eyesore wrote:

nevermore wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

nevermore wrote:

That's great news!! The artists deserve to be paid.

To be paid for what though? I can see artists wanting to be paid for their songs being used and uploaded by other members, but should the artist be paid for songs streamed from their own MySpace page? The site is free; they upload that music of their own free will. And it's all free for them. Should they be paid for that?

Yes, for the songs being uploaded by others. I should have put that in my post.

There is the argument that visitors to these bands' pages are generating revenue for MySpace, thus they deserve a cut, but how does a company do the math on that? It'd be nearly impossible to do.

True.

I thought this organization was going to "use" myspace as a way to get past/lost royalties to bands found on myspace.

If bands can somehow get paid for their efforts, I'm all for it, good for them.

It all sounds like a nice idea in theory, but don't go holding your breath for bands to actually see checks flowing in. Noone is making money from MySpace except Mr. MySpace and his board of executives. I can see things getting hung up in bureaucratic red-tape, legal entanglements, fees, etc. till a few years down the road, when Band X gets a check in the mail for .57 cents.

Gee whiz, the system works!! Thanks MySpace!!

Yea I don't get it. But if I see some cash come our way I'll let you all know.

I don't know much about how music/publishing rights work but this sounds like it's a step in the right direction.

Lemme see if I get this straight: if I had a MySpace page (which I don't) and I put an Ultimatum track on the music player on my page, somehow or other this organization will keep track of that and Ultimatum would get a nickel for it every time it's played or something?

MetalGuy71 wrote:

If bands can somehow get paid for their efforts, I'm all for it, good for them.

It all sounds like a nice idea in theory, but don't go holding your breath for bands to actually see checks flowing in. Noone is making money from MySpace except Mr. MySpace and his board of executives. I can see things getting hung up in bureaucratic red-tape, legal entanglements, fees, etc. till a few years down the road, when Band X gets a check in the mail for .57 cents.

Gee whiz, the system works!! Thanks MySpace!!

Exactly. A few months ago at my job I heard Sub Mail Carriers were going to get some back pay from a previous error. I heard about this in November (I believe) and I still haven't seen a dime. When I hear about things like this I don't get my hopes up. Theres always something that gets in the way and either delays it or just never happens because of some loop hole.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Yea I don't get it. But if I see some cash come our way I'll let you all know.

I don't think it'll hurt to register with SoundExchange and see what happens. Getting something is better than nothing.

I wonder if this means they will start charging users or adding more ads, thus driving people towards YouTube/Facebook/etc.

I don't see how they can pay what radio used to pay to every MySpace artist for each play.

Is last.fm gonna have to do this next?

Fat Freddy wrote:

I don't know much about .....

I mean, you can just stop at that right there!

T-Roy wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I don't know much about .....

I mean, you can just stop at that right there!

Mehhhh, bite me, Zippy.