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Did anyone else get a nice surprise from ASCAP’s May foreign distribution?
it was called “Private Copying” paid by GEMA in Germany. I picked up 2K from this “settlement”…but have no idea what the special payment was for. I did some digging about “private copying” and found this info:YouTube settlement helps push GEMA collections up 15% in 2016
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000261862
A private copying levy (also known as blank media tax or levy) is a government-mandated scheme in which a special tax or levy (additional to any general sales tax) is charged on purchases of recordable media. Such taxes are in place in various countries and the income is typically allocated to the developers of “content”. (A distinction is sometimes made between “tax” and “levy” based on the recipient of the accumulated funds; taxes are received by a government, while levies are received by a private body, such as a copyright collective.)
Levy system may operate in principle as a system of collectivisation, partially replacing a property approach of sale of individual units.
I DO get BMI payments from Youtube (millions of streams a year), but as you well know, ANY digital streaming performance royalties are incredibly low and obviously far out of balance to even the most casual observer. Coincidence? Everyone can decide for themselves.
IMO, the whole paradigm of performance royalties as anything other than pennies that might pay for lunch is slipping quickly into the morass as media moves AWAY from traditional broadcasting and towards youtube, Spotify, etc.. All of which employ business models that they claim are not sustainable for themselves, much less for composers. Haha! Right!
Until the PRO’s get better contracts with the new tech companies, we will be getting less and less and less. I can absolutely quantify it as more and more of my shows move out of cable/network over to streaming. Ridiculous. And BMI? They won’t even return a phone call right now.
Glad you got a nice payment from Germany!! Maybe overseas will be the piece of the puzzle that holds us together and allows us to live at poverty level instead of going completely bankrupt. 🙂
Of course, you are dead on correct.
You’ve got people / organizations who push and push and push to try to keep things “like they used to be”. Then you’ve got others who push towards the future – people / organizations who “get it”. The PMA and PRO’s are in the first camp. Aaaannnnnnd….there’s pretty much no one in the second camp – at least no one who can effectuate change. Until the powers that be fall into the second camp (most likely kicking and screaming) the big money will not be flowing to composers.
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