[Rumori] Beatallica and more on compulsory licenses and Sony/ATV

[Nicola Battista]

also, this type of license is compulsory and follows the rules
established by HFA; and if HFA doesnt license certain tracks, I know
that it should still be possible to license them via the copyright
office in the US. Or else, move the server to another country and for
example apply with another society.

I have heard that italian agency SIAE has some type of relatively cheap
license for indie artists or small indie labels, and this differs from
the commercial site license which has huge costs (like 7% of site
revenue).
According to the HFA site you also pay for free d/l, this means they
must have some option for free sites like artist homepages, otherwise
how could you calculate a fee based on nonexisting sales?

Also, there is another factor to consider: the tracks are not covers of
single cover songs, but apparently (I only have heard one track) they're
medleys.
This means the statutory royalty will be splitted in smaller parts,
probably; now take the track I've heard... it's called "No remorseful
reply" and apparently looks like Metallica's "No remorse" plus Beatles'
"No reply".
Not sure if there is any original or other material in there (I listened
to that track only once and I'm not a huge Metallica fan).

Now suppose that this track is a 50/50 medley of the two songs.
This means Sony/ATV only has 50% of that compulsory royalty of 8,5
cents; the rest if for the publishers of Lars & co.

from the ASCAP (www.ascap.com/ace) website:

NO REMORSE      (Title Code: 440171619)  
Writers:
HETFIELD JAMES ALAN
ULRICH LARS 

Performers:
METALLICA

Variations:
NO REMORSE HETFIELD ULRICH 

Publishers/Administrators:
CREEPING DEATH MUSIC
C/O DEBRA MACCULLOCH
KING, PURTICH, HOLMES, PATERNO & BERLINER
1900 AVENUE OF THE STARS
SUITE 2500
LOS ANGELES, CA, 90067
Tel. (310) 282-8989
 
But if you look at songfile.com, you'll also discover that Sony/ATV only
controls 66,66% of publishing rights in "No reply" (and I bet most of
the other Beatles songs have similar splits):

---
Mechanical License Request - Restricted Quantities HFA Song Code:
N58410  Song Title:  NO REPLY  
Song Writer:  LENNON, MCCARTNEY  

We can provide you with  100.00% of the license for this song.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Publisher Detail  Split  Rep. by HFA?  
SONY/ATV TUNES LLC D/B/A ATV (NORTHERN SONGS CATALOG)  66.66%  Y  
EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC COLLECTING AGENT-LENNON/MCCARTNEY WRITERS  33.34%  Y


---

this means Sony/ATV potentially owns only a minority percentage of this
Beatallica track.
Now suppose that in the Beatallica tracks there is also original
material, say 5-10% of original lyrics/music. If I was the author of
these, I would register these original bits with the proper agencies.
This would result in lowering even more Sony/ATV's potential percentage.

What I am trying to say is that not only the "injury" can be cancelled
with a compulsory license, but also that Sony/ATV's damage is even lower
if you consider they don't even control HALF of the music and lyrics in
each Beatallica track.

regards,
Nicola DjB