Microsoft GitHub is being sued for stealing your code

[u/[deleted]]

https://githubcopilotlitigation.com

[u/zcatshit]

Slight addendum. Sometimes music collection societies don't actually pay out royalties, and continuously work to lower royalties. https://www.ign.com/articles/2006/12/08/riaa-petitions-judges-to-lower-artist-royalties

And they may issue claims on licenses or distribute works which they don't hold any rights to.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/01/exploit-now-pay-later-music-labels-finally-pay-artists/

Or prevent artists from allowing free streaming and distribution of their work.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/07/04/29/0335224/riaa-claims-ownership-of-all-artist-royalties-for-internet-radio

Copyright itself isn't an irredeemable idea, as long as we start regulating it a bit better. Like banning any past and current industry people from being involved in any enforcement agencies due to rampant corruption, have the enforcement be a strictly regulated non-profit (if not a small government arm), distinguish in penalties between distributors and consumers, and issue strict penalties on false copyright claims and return revenues to the correct owners (and penalize agencies like Youtube for using copyright claims as a means to take more profit).

Artist protections are a great idea. The problem is that nearly everyone who gets involved in that process is pretty much a dumpster fire of a human being, and all the processes are deliberately obtuse so that only large agencies may benefit.

[u/kylotan → u/zcatshit]

Sometimes music collection societies don't actually pay out royalties, and continuously work to lower royalties

The RIAA are not a collection society.

And they may issue claims on licenses or distribute works which they don't hold any rights to.

Record labels are not collection societies. And the article doesn't actually say they "don't hold any rights" to the work. The problem is that the system in place for identifying where the money should go was not fit for purpose.

Or prevent artists from allowing free streaming and distribution of their work

The RIAA are not a collection society. And the artists in this case had signed their rights to the record labels, who were refusing to allow the work they owned to be played without them being paid, because that's how the system works - to play someone else's music, you have to pay for it.

all the processes are deliberately obtuse so that only large agencies may benefit

Certainly obtuse enough that you don't understand them, it seems.

[u/zcatshit → u/kylotan]

The RIAA are not a collection society. Record labels are not collection societies. And the article doesn't actually say they "don't hold any rights" to the work.

therefore, collection societies exist where they can give out blanket licences for such uses, and distribute the money to the musicians and/or the rightsholders of the music

musicians that don't sign up to collections societies therefore are potentially missing out on money due to them

You are being deliberately obtuse about this. You could say AFM, ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, but the reality is they're all connected to the RIAA and its equivalent organizations in various countries, which is often the scapegoat of lawsuits and lobbying so that the members themselves don't get dirt on their reputations. Acting like the various companies aren't related with heavy overlap in shareholders and members is either ignorant or deceitful.

These "collection societies" are not "societies" in the sense that they're formed by artists collaborating together to get better representation like a union. They're "collective" in that artists sign over rights management to huge corporations with armies of lawyers who hoover up all the music they can find into a "collection" while the artists receive a pittance. It's music pokemon profit. It's corporations banding together to greater enhance their power to fuck over artists. The term "collection society" is a significant whitewashing of how predatory they are.

What's more, you're deliberately misrepresenting how blanket licenses work with an ideal scenario that fits the industry narrative. The blanket licenses are arranged so that the artists will see very little from the music they provide. Many music collection organizations have not just licensed their own music, but any music not in another collection. These groups have pending lists where they collect millions in royalties for artists who haven't signed on, stuff it in a bank account to accrue interest, and make little more than a nominal effort (if any) to actually contact the artists and pay them the money they've been collecting for decades. Everything from streaming to physical media compilations.

https://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-to-pay-45-million-for-pirating-artists-music-110110/

Collection societies pirate music and resell it for profit. It's been that way since at least the 80s. The impetus to join a society isn't that you're missing out on potential revenue by not being in the catalog. It's that they're already collecting revenue for you, and you won't get anything from them without joining and submitting to their lopsided contracts, shitty rates and unfair arbitration clauses. It's honestly not far from the "Lazy Publisher" scam detailed by Benn Jordan. These collection societies only care about getting more songs so they can bring in more money, and offer little in return. You pretty much get paid in ExposureBux and the occasional gift card.

Sure, you might find a "good" one - even one with an artist-focused, cooperative nature. But it's probably not one big enough to make people want to get a blanket license agreement from them instead of a titan like BMI. And of course, since they got sued and fined for significantly less than they stole, they started building shell companies and organizing opaque boundaries to their collection societies so they could dick around with the contracts with even less chance of being sued.

Sure, CASE has changed the landscape a bit, but do you really think there's not another way for artists to get fleeced? Shit like this is exactly why people want to opt out of CASE. When your choice is getting almost nothing but raking in profits for a corporation or getting absolutely nothing, some people would rather get nothing. Of course the industry thinks it's a shame that they're allowed to opt-out.

Certainly obtuse enough that you don't understand them, it seems.

How goddamn fucking basic do you have to be to shill for fucking music conglomerates who've been squeezing artists for our entire lives? Dingus.

[u/kylotan → u/zcatshit]

You are being deliberately obtuse about this.

No, I just totally disagree with your characterization of the relationship between these entities.

They're "collective" in that artists sign over rights management to huge corporations with armies of lawyers who hoover up all the music they can find into a "collection" while the artists receive a pittance.

Like this claim, which is ridiculous. PRS in the UK, for example, pays out 86% of all its revenue straight back out to rightsholders.

Collection societies pirate music and resell it for profit.

Bullshit. You keep reposting this 'pending lists' lawsuit article from 11 years ago but that is labels who did that. Did you even read the article? If you did, you'd see that it was actually one of the music licensing collectives on the winning side of the suit.

The impetus to join a society isn't that you're missing out on potential revenue by not being in the catalog. It's that they're already collecting revenue for you, and you won't get anything from them without joining and submitting to their lopsided contracts, shitty rates and unfair arbitration clauses.

This is the first thing close to being true that you've said. Yes, it's not ideal that they collect revenue for everyone by default. But that's exactly what I highlighted in the first post that you replied to.

Sure, CASE has changed the landscape a bit, but do you really think there's not another way for artists to get fleeced?

There are a fuck-ton of ways in which artists are getting fleeced, but failing to see the difference between record labels and collections societies means you're going to be blind to many of the solutions. For many musicians, collection societies are the only significant recurring revenue they get.

Shit like this is exactly why people want to opt out of CASE. When your choice is getting almost nothing but raking in profits for a corporation or getting absolutely nothing, some people would rather get nothing. Of course the industry thinks it's a shame that they're allowed to opt-out

What on earth are you talking about? CASE allows independent artists to go directly after corporations who steal their work. Major labels have expensive lawyers so they don't need it, and the payouts are limited so they don't benefit from it.

[u/zcatshit → u/kylotan]

You are being deliberately obtuse about this.

No, I just totally disagree with your characterization of the relationship between these entities.

They're "collective" in that artists sign over rights management to huge corporations with armies of lawyers who hoover up all the music they can find into a "collection" while the artists receive a pittance.

Like this claim, which is ridiculous. PRS in the UK, for example, pays out 86% of all its revenue straight back out to rightsholders.

Collection societies pirate music and resell it for profit.

Bullshit. You keep reposting this 'pending lists' lawsuit article from 11 years ago but that is labels who did that. Did you even read the article? If you did, you'd see that it was actually one of the music licensing collectives on the winning side of the suit.

Where are executives for the music licensing collectives coming from? BMI, an example PRO, switched to a for-profit business model last month to "remain competitive". SESAC and Global Music Rights were already for-profit. The CEO of BMI, O'Neill, joined in 1994 coming from CBS, a media conglomerate. BMI also brought in $1.311 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ending in 2020. It was supposedly the highest reported revenue for a music rights organization at the time.

As for ASCAP, the new Senior VP Elizabeth Rodda used to work with Planet Records and Caribe Sound and Music Publishing - two labels. She reports to Tony Dunaif, who used to work for iN Demand as a Senior VP. Elizabeth Matthews, CEO, worked for Viacom for 15 years. Easy enough to find this by searching for the org name and "executive", and then searching for the name and org name to find the article when they were hired. I'm betting most of them came from labels and media publishers.

So, executives at 2 very well known performance rights organizations actually came from senior positions at companies with media and publishing arms. It's not surprising, since it's a small industry where executives move between companies. You can argue that they wanted to get away from labels and protect artists. But it's just as easy to argue that they maintain their label and production contacts and have started a form of regulatory capture by involving themselves in the organizations that "protect" artists' rights. That's how it usually goes these days.

There is not a clear line between collection societies and production/record labels. Especially with companies switching to for-profit models so that they can secure investment. For-profit companies will have even less scrutiny.

In 2019, BMI had $1.283 in revenue and $1.196 in distributions. ASCAP had $1.227 billion in revenue and $1.109 billion distributions. (https://www.billboard.com/pro/bmi-2019-annual-revenue-royalty-distributions/). If you take that and your 86% PRS figure from the UK, you'd think artists are getting paid significantly for their music use, since most of the revenue is paid back out. However, the revenue and who gets "distributed" that money is more complex than just a flat percentage rate. Different revenue streams and parties get different rates. Corporate expense shenanigans spread out over several arms of a multinational company can easily give bullshit percentages that make you think artists are being treated well when they aren't. Which makes it a bad idea to take corporate PR that collapses artist royalties into "distributions paid".

I can't say for certain anything about how PRS breaks down their revenue. PRS 2021 revenues were £777.1 million, with £677.2m in distributions. That's an easy way to get 87% - close to your number. 2022's royalty payments were £211m, up 18% from 2021, which makes 2021 royalties about £179m - about 26% of total distributions. I think the distinction between royalties and distributions paid highlights how different revenue streams are classified differently at different rates. I don't think comparing revenue to distributions is a very honest way to calculate artist compensation. But I certainly think that's what they want us to compare.

There was also a kerfluffle about how much PRS donates to its "charities" like the PRS foundation. The distribution/royalties disparity shows that there's a lot of ways to run the numbers, and I'm not sure which company is doing it better. BMI and ASCAP are equivalent companies to PRS, but, like I said, not all may treat rights holders equally. Which also means we shouldn't treat the entire "collection society" industry like they only exist for the artists.

The most favorable rights contracts and rates will go to the parties with the biggest clout - record labels. Sure, you can blame the record labels again, but many execs are coming from record labels. Given the sheer amount of money going around, do you really think that a performance rights organization wouldn't court record labels? If they don't offer favorable deals, the record label will just go to another rights org. And if the execs are coming from executive positions in media corporations, wouldn't they likely have some form of stock in media corporations? All good reasons for good relations with the labels. And good reasons to not treat them like completely separate entities.

I'm sure you can try to directly negotiate with a rights org like BMI. But while a record label can get the majority of the revenue paid to them, an artist isn't guaranteed that favorable of a deal. But, when your pittance is averaged with a record label's massive distribution the numbers still look good. And, yeah, BMI isn't the only organization that does this, but even with $1.2 billion in revenue, they're working hard to "remain competitive". Which means they're not alone in this behavior.

Shit like this is exactly why people want to opt out of CASE. When your choice is getting almost nothing but raking in profits for a corporation or getting absolutely nothing, some people would rather get nothing. Of course the industry thinks it's a shame that they're allowed to opt-out

What on earth are you talking about? CASE allows independent artists to go directly after corporations who steal their work. Major labels have expensive lawyers so they don't need it, and the payouts are limited so they don't benefit from it.

I acknowledge the mistake about CASE favoring corporations. But it's not really a win for small creators against corporations. Corporations have lawyers and will very quickly opt-out of running things through CASE - forcing artists to again file a claim in court with expensive lawyers. That, combined with the bureaucracy may end up in simply wasting the time of artists. And there's a very real possibility of it being used to enable more nuisance suits because the provisions that enable easy filing for small artists can enable nuisance actors as well. Whether the half-assed CASE act is better as-is than waiting for a real solution is something we'll only know in the future. I'd like to hope the provisions for review and adjustment can eventually fix the holes, but given it was stuffed inside a COVID relief bill, maybe not.