[LINK] music industry goes after public performance

[Chris Gilbey]

<<I can buy a perpetual public exhibition license for a CD of non-APRA/PPCA
works at Magnatune
for US$300. PPCA run the risk of pricing their members out of the market,
especially if a
music retailer like Magnatune offers a public exhibition license of entire
catalogue at an
annual rate.>>

>From my brief reading of the Magnatunes licensing blurb on their webiste, it
seems that when you license something from the company you pay a one off fee
for the use of the works in synch or mechanical. This does not obviate the
payment of performance income for the song. Most songwriters who use
services such as Magnatunes rely on performance income collected by the
respective societies such as APRA and ASCAP and GEMA around the world to put
bread on the table. And part of the reason is that those societies don¹t
allow a sale of the performance aspect of a musical work. (And yes, many of
those societies¹ rules benefit the high earners rather than the newbies or
the small guys. So it is not an absolutely fair system. But then not much is
perfect!)

So you can buy your license from Magnatune, but it won¹t mean that the venue
that the work is publicly performed in will be able to excuse itself from
paying annual license for the songs performed...

CG