[Rumori] Songwriters Say Piracy Eats Into Their Pay

[M.Simons]

Hey peeps,

  I'm joining the discussion without quoting anybody but the article.
But I'd say what illegalart just said about assuming all who download
would buy the cd are some good points.  I would also add.. what if
everybody chose to purchase only used copies?  The songwriter & publisher,
etc. would have gotten nothing.  Or what about low bit-rates that are no
better than taping off the radio?  Or incomplete or flawed downloads? Or
mislabeled files?

> Although songwriters typically earn only pennies for every sale of a
> recorded song, if every person who downloaded "Hard Knock Life" had
> bought a CD instead, Mr. Strouse would have collected at least
> $46,000 in royalty payments, assuming he would have received 4 cents
> a download.

This is where this article really broke down for me.  They are ASSUMING
his royalty rate for this song.  They go on in the article to say that if
a song is co-written the cost is once again cut in half.  Now, looking at
Jay-Z's lyrics... and I stress JAY-Z's lyrics.. apart from using the hook,
and the chorus of Hard Knock Life, what is it? A derivative work?
Co-Written? on the lyric webpage I checked, there was no mention of Mr.
Strouse, I wonder if there is a mention of him in the CD, or how the song
is registered with BMI/ASCAP or whomever.  I am not going to do the
research, however.  The point is, this is a pretty bad assumption and it
marks the start of the degredation of this argument.

> Mr. Strouse took in about $250,000 from recording royalties in 2002,
> according to his publisher, Helene Blue. Last year, she said, Mr.
> Strouse drew only about half that total, mainly because of illegal
> downloading of various recordings containing his songs.

250k for his ENTIRE catalog.  Could it have been the downturn in the
economy? Or maybe nobody was listening to his songs in 2003, or those that
were interested had purchased the cds in 2002?  A Hard Knock Life came out
in 1998: How much play did it get in 2003?  Are we to really believe that
one derivative work would have really produced $46,000 in revenue if his
entire catalog in a good year only produces 250k?  Even if you assume
Jay-Z and Mr. Strouse splitting the revenues (hence, $23,000/each) what is
that?  A little less than 10% of his numbers in 2002?  That's an awful big
chunk for one derivative work which was released 5 years prior.. and that
chunk is just of alleged lost income, and doesn't include actual sales.

> closing, it affects the working musicians. What it ultimately affects
> is the choice of music the public gets. When I have No. 1 songwriters
> working other jobs, we're not getting more music."

I guess this guy's never heard of one hit wonders.

> "There's a big dark cloud over the business right now," the songwriter
> Ms. Peiken said.

Wow, how poetically she describes the RIAA.

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