Web Radio Battles Efforts to Expand Royalties for Music

WEB RADIO BATTLES EFFORTS TO EXPAND ROYALTIES FOR MUSIC
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Lee Gomes]
Every piece of recorded music is covered by two separate copyrights. The first involves the musical composition itself and is usually handled by music publishers on behalf of composers and songwriters. The other is for a specific recording of the song, which is owned by record labels and musicians. Those two copyrights are nearly as old as recorded music itself. They have spawned huge organizations to represent the various parties, including the Recording Industry Association of America, which speaks for record labels, and ASCAP and BMI, which are music publishers that represent songwriters. Web-radio companies, including big Internet broadcasters such as Yahoo, are banded together through the Digital Media Association. Often, interests on the content-creation side of the music business are aligned, as when they join forces to fight music piracy. But record labels and musicians typically can negotiate royalties, while songwriters and composers are usually forced to take a fixed amount -- one established via a legal proceeding set up by Congress. The publishers representing the songwriters one day would like to change that to gain flexibility in negotiations.
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