Login HereI don't know if you've ever checked out one of those websites that lets you know if you have money that you don't know about in some long lost bank account or something, but I have. I type in my name...nothing.
Well over the last week I've been getting emails from friends and fans alike informing me that L7 (one of my bands) appeared in a post on boingboing about some entity called Sound Exchange owing us royalties for digital uses from webcasting and satellite radio.
So I went to the SoundExchange.com website, typed in L7's name... and there we were. I was so excited like I won the lottery or something. Hey, we're on there!!! Cool!
Then it started to piss me off. Why the hell can't they "find" us? Granted, a lot of the artists on this list of 9,000 are pretty obscure, but I'm sure most of us are very familiar with all or most of the artists on my playlist this week (all on the "unfound" list"). In fact I found most of these artists' "official sites" and I bet by the end of the day I'd be in contact with most of them one way or another. So I've done a bit of recon and I'm still deciphering all of this info.
"In an effort to educate and notify recording artists of their entitlement to royalties, SoundExchange has worked for years with the major record labels, independent labels, The Recording Academy, CD Baby, Celebrity Access, Disc Makers, The Blues Foundation, The Vocal Group Hall of Fame, American Association of Indpendent Music (A2IM), The Folk Alliance, IAJE, ASCAP, SESAC, BMI, and numerous others, including many individual artist management companies, business management firms and law firms to notify approximately 22,000 recording artists of the royalties they may be entitled to under federal law"
Rrriiight, well I haven't heard jack until this week and it didn't come from anyone in the ‘biz". I don't know who the bad guys are yet (Sound Exchange does pay royalties directly to artists), but here's the rub, if the artists on this list of 9,000 "unfound" do not register with Sound Exchange by Dec. 15, 2006 they forfeit their right to their royalties from the digital world 1996-2000 and said royalties will be granted to Sound Exchange. Now that's a lot of clams.
Here's some links and info about this weirdness:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-246239.html
If you have any musical artist friends, let them know about this because maybe no one else will.
I'd love to hear The Spin You're In in the comments section.
The Spin iMix In: Lost and Found(Requires iTunes version 6.0 or newer) |
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Spotlight
Donita!
Another great playlist as usual!
OTIS!
Caoimhin Laochdha @ 1
He loves us!
First off, I didn’t know you were in L7. Love them.
Pizzacato Five is a nice groove, their other stuff is good too.
Also UO is a good fall sound.
But, WHAT, no Blind Melon?
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @ 3
Fini, FiniTOOBZ,
Him also.
I was thinking about Otis Redding — “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”
slainte,
cl
woo, I can hear siouxie’s funky reverse reverbed drums in my head now!
Donita,
Wow–you were notified practically instantly on your own blog that you had money coming to you…. That’s one nice blog comment. Too bad it takes friends, fans, and readers to do that, and not the biz.
This might be a stupid question, but does MySpace give any money to artists who host their songs on there? Or is it solely for exposure? Seems like a shame if you don’t get $ for it since MySpace is reaping in the advertising dollars.
-Jenn from MD
All Hail FiniTOOBZ for his technical help. He’s Back!
And as for SoundExchange not “being able” to contact all those artists… well, you should know by now that a large portion of the industry makes it’s living screwing over it’s talent. It’s simply not in their best interest to “find” the people it owes money, especially when they’ve got such an egregious default as to be able to lay claim to your digital royalties!
Caoimhin Laochdha @
5
Rule of thumb, all musicians named Otis are f’n cool as hell. In fact I resolved long ago if I ever have a son I am going to try to get the signif other to name him Otis Padgett.
BTW, my Gaelic is a little rusty, but isn’t your name the Gaelic translation for Firedog Lake? If so thats awesome, if not, what is it’s meaning in English? I have been slowly learning the tongue of my ancestors for a while and love opportunities to learn more.
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @
1
Thanks Donita and how are things with you Fini????? I hope well.
Jenn wonders about Donita’s spitcurls @ 7
Hi Jenn, I haven’t a clue about the myspace issue. I look upon it as promo I guess.
Donita Sparks @ 8
Thank you for the hat tip. It’s good to be back. I’d like to thank everyone from FDL who sent emails or left comments at my blog because of the passing of my mother. It was an extremely sad event and the kindness of my family at FDL in my time of need truly helped greatly. My family also wishes to express their thanks as well. FDL community members are the finest people in Blogtopia.
My partner’s old record company told her “Oh; we thought you had died !”
How convenient, particularly as she’d had a top ten hit when she was 20 ( a “few” moons ago). They then managed to “find” some royalties.
“Found” money is definitely out there but as Donita illustrates, ya gotta go find it.
angie @ 11
I’m doing ok, thank you for asking. I hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
I’d guess they’ve done the minimum legally required to “find” you guys (a letter to a supposed last known address, perhaps.) It’s in their financial interest not to do more than that (just morally wrong.)
But do you realize how great it is that you and boingboing have effectively kicked off an open-source project to counter that? This is exactly the kind of thing the blogosphere is best at.
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @ 13
My deepest condolences Fini. I know she was your best friend and my heart goes out to you. I did not know she had passed, but I have been thinking of you often. Blessings.
As mentioned earlier:
The Gates Of Delirium
from Yes - Relayer
Is terrific for the state of today’s union.
The YouTube posted earlier is quite rough (though I love it, h/t to Lou Costello). Try to seek out the studio version or the live Magnum Opus on YesShows.
I’m dating myself, but at least I’m dating someone…
Donita Sparks @ 12
MySpace does not pay royalties to the artists that post music there. It’s a tradeoff arrangement that provides the musicians free webspace to put up 4 tracks at a time and lots more promotional info about the band.
The idea is you trade access to the MySpace eyeballs by providing the content the eyeballs want to look at. One well stocked and properly promoted MySpace page can equal a full blown advertising campaign for an unsigned artist. Dane Cook built his comedy career on MySpace. Several big hit new artists from the last year got their initial boosts on MySpace so it makes sense for everybody involved. What you lose in royalties from MySpace you theoretically make up in new exposure to concertgoers and people who order your CD or download you from iTunes.
I understand the recording biz rips off artists all the time, but this doesn’t sound legal. Not that I’m a lawyer or anything.
How can your rights to their use of your music end on a certain date?
Redshift @ 16
Yeah, funny thing though, my record labels, music publishers, and booking agent get ahold of me all the time. Everyone on the internet knows how to get ahold of either me or my manager ‘contact” on my two websites. Not exactly finding a needle in a haystack.
Condolences to your family, Fini.
…
To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, “It’s difficult to get someone to find someone when their salary depends on their not finding them” …Look how many artists whose band names start with ‘The’ are filed under ‘T’, for pity’s sake.
BTW, Greta B.’s looking for you, Donita.
Spin:
Weather Report - Black Market
Ministry - Thieves
Utopia - Swing To The Right
…and if my s.o. plays Metallica’s Black Album one more f*cking time…BANG! ZOOM!
;>)
OT: Think Progress & Huffington have up a post that GM has just hired right wing fear mongerer Sean Hannity as a spokesman for its new “patriotism” publicity series. The following GM contact info was included in the post:
Rick Wagoner - GM Chairman & CEO
phone 313 667-3505
Fax 313 667-3133
email grwjr@gm.com
OT and/or duplicate–sorry, on the fly…
Thinkprogress reporting that Sean Hannity has been signed as a spokesman for GM.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/29/hannity-gm/
GM, dead to me now. Act Blue with your wallets, pups.
darkblack @ 22
I love Greta! What a great bass player. Is she still playing with Moby?
darkblack @ 22
Ah, you’re going to make me pull out Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste.
Donita,
I’m plugging away with my Beatles songbook. Have calluses on my fingertips now, getting stronger fingers. Having FUN!
Donita Sparks @ 25
I saw her play with Moby on Letterman, she is phenomenal! I never realized that was your old bass player from L7 until now. She rocks!
Sound exchange is a non-profit company, and yet if not claimed “said royalties will be granted to Sound Exchange” WTF? How can they be considered a non-profit with the mission to reach artists, and then never reach out to all these quite well know artists who’s interests they are charged with representing?
What will they spend these soon to granted royalties on? How expensive is a Google search?
Fini FiniTOOBZ @ 19,
Thanks for the additional info about MySpace. I saw a band that had 42 friends on there one day. They were featured on the index page of MySpace (featured artists) and within two days they had over 4,000 friends. That’s got to translate to CD/download sales somewhere!
I’m going to put some songs up on MySpace once I get my copyright and ASCAP stuff in order. It’ll be my first time posting music online… instead of putting out a CD (with a band.)
Mansard
I saw a piece many years ago on 60 Minutes about how Billy Joel got screwed
out of millions.
Beatles and others won’t participate in the $1.00 song download thing.
Joel’s advice was to get a lawyer and BM who specializes in copyright law yet recognized talent. Good luck.
Peace
bdu @ 26
I still play that whole album first track to last about once every 4 or 5 weeks. Give me Big Al any day. Here’s something interesting from them I found on YouTube a few weeks ago.
My favorite Ministry album was “Twitch”.
You may all flame me now.
happy friday to you donita!
i love your playlist of “lost” artists! i’ve played the pizzicato five video 4 times already!
make sure those soundexchange weasels pay up!!
Donita Sparks @ 25
Don’t think so…She got burned with some other band, and went off painting houses, last I heard.
Jenn wonders about Donita’s spitcurls @ 30
A friend of mine said there was a recent NYTimes article about the death of the CD format. I guess it only takes 50,000 units to crack the Top 10 Soundscan charts. Used to be you had to move several hundred thousand units before that would happen. It’s a digital future, those artists who recognize that early will be the ones to capitalize on it faster. It’s a whole new ballgame these days, for better or worse.
TRex @ 33
Not gonna get flames from me, I was with them from ‘84 forward, Everyday is Halloween in my house. Twitch had All Day on it, another fine pre-industrial tune from Al and the gang. I do know it was after Twitch that Al became baptized in the First Church of the Loud Guitar.
TRex @ 33
‘Trendie’
;>)
Psalm 69, bay-beh! Music to chainsaw down the empire to…And the little kids love it!
Good old crazy Al and Paul.
Fini FiniTOOBZ @ 36,
I really hope the CD format doesn’t die. Honestly, no offense to anyone, but I don’t listen to mixes. I listen to albums/CDs all the way through in one sitting if I can. If I have to skip more than half the songs, the CD usually gets sold on Half.com and stops wasting space on my shelves.
But… I’m definitely willing to give the online thing a shot with my new music project.
We should also give props to pioneer Donita (and L7) who, as I recall, were one of the very first artists to allow people to purchase downloads of their single “Freeway” back in the late 90s.
This must be Chicago music day. We got Urge Overkill in the playlist, Donita is from Chicago, we’re geekin’ on Ministry and I am now remembering the first of two occasions where I met Al Jourgenson was at a Fugazi show at the Double Door in Chicago in I think maybe 96 or 97. I may road trip there to catch a show soon, it’s been a while since I partied Chicago style.
Donita,
Question that has bugged me for a long time. In the movie Serial Mom - is L& band playing when Kathleen Turner goes into the concert to hide from the police?
Listening to “Shove” right now, much to the annoyance of my coworkers.
errr… make that L7 rather than L&… my apologies.
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @ 32
That’s just about the only post-Psalm69 ministry song I can get into (and it’s a cover!). I can still remember the Tuesday I raced to the store to grab Filth Pig, raced to a friend’s place nearby to give it a spin, only to feel sadly disappointed.
TRex @ 33
There’s nothing wrong with that!
A year or so ago, Al was selling a bunch of old equipment on Ebay, nice stuff, too, Fairlights, Publison Infernal Machines, etc. You should have seen how totally beat to crap they were! They had written their sample names in sharpie on each key of the Fairlight so they could remember which key corresponded to what in their sample-maps!
Teh smack is bad for you, mmmkay…
if the artists on this list of 9,000 “unfound” do not register with Sound Exchange by Dec. 15, 2006 they forfeit their right to their royalties from the digital world 1996-2000 and said royalties will be granted to Sound Exchange
But, but, but, wasn’t the DCMA supposed to “protect” the rights of artists and composers? Or was it only supposed to protect them from the public? Being screwed over by companies is still allowed? Sure looks that way.
OT
Anyone here the story on CNN right now that Repub. Rep Mark Foley is not seeking re-election? Something about inappropriate emails with a 16 Y.O. boy….. developing….
Fini FiniTOOBZ @10
Dear O’Fini FiniTOOBZ,
I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your Mother. I send my sympathies to you and your family. It is nice to “see” you in good cheer.
In answer to your question, “Caoimhin” is the Irish spelling of Kevin.
“Laochdha” is pronounced just like it looks. (except, in English, the “chd” is silent, ignore the “o”, make the first “a” short and the second “a” sounds like a long “e.”
see: http://www.irishgen.com/surnam.....me_id=1066
http://www.houseofnames.org/xq.....-crest.htm
Short answer: Yeah, I think you’re right. Roughly translated, my name is Irish (in a Tipperary dialect sort of way) for “FireIrishWolfHound Lake.”
slainte (”good health to you”) friend,
cl
Jenn wonders about Donita’s spitcurls @ 39
I have mixed feelings about the death of CD as a format. I turn 35 on Sunday so I can remember albums, 8 tracks and cassettes going the way of the dinosaur when CD showed up. Yet another format death especially in the business I still have ties to is kinda frustrating, but the market determines these things.
There are a couple of ways to look at the death of the CD as both a good and a bad thing. On the good side, the record companies were price gouging the shit out of consumers with CD for decades, so that goes away. On the other hand, with no packaging costs and distribution done digitally, the record companies are still deducting royalties to musicians for these costs even though they are considerably lower now since you are not pressing CDs and shipping them to distributors.
What I see happening is a slow return to the previous music business model of pushing the single instead of the album by new artists. And maybe this isn’t such a bad idea honestly. All the bands of the 50s and 60s were single, one hit wonder artists. The truly talented bands were the ones that cut full albums (The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, et al). Some artists are cut out only to make one good song, others are more talented and can deliver 10-12 A list songs for an album. The days where everybody cut a full length in many ways were a mistake for a lot of artists. But this is only my opinion.
Here’s a link….about Foley
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl.....gns_o.html
kristinejoy @ 44
Raw has it up too. Any news who the Dems have up against him. This also speaks to the importance of Dean’s 50 state strategy!
Another one gone, another one gone, another one bites the dust…
Who’s running against Foley?
Richmond @
48
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl....._oppo.html
Caoimhin Laochdha @ 45
Thank you for your sympathy for my family and I, it’s been a difficult year with Mother’s battle with brain and lung cancer and then her passing. When she did finally go it was a relief to have all her suffering alleviated, and I was with her the moment she passed which was a beautifully serene experience that helped me deal with this whole event much better.
Thank you for the Gaelic lesson, I was familiar with slainte meaning good health, but when I saw your name I thought I saw the word for hound or dog or something. Grandma would be proud of my recall skills on this anyway :)
I have Shaw blood in me and I think there were some of them in the Tipperary area. I intend to go on that new Irish geneaology site they launched soon to track down exactly where our people came from.
Richmond @
48
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl....._oppo.html
All hands on deck to donate to Mahoney!
Hmmm. I guess my embargo of ABC will need to wait in this case. Love when they find pervert Rethugs.
Embargo off! (for now).
Fini FiniTOOBZ @ 46,
You know, you make an excellent point when you say that, “…What I see happening is a slow return to the previous music business model of pushing the single instead of the album…. Some artists are cut out only to make one good song….” You’re right. No need to put out an album of mostly filler.
***
Lately I’ve had a tough time finding CDs I like almost all of the way through. The Moaners (Yep Roc) “Dark Snack” release is one of the few I don’t have to skip tracks on.
If we do go back to that older music business plan, how will listeners find the albums that were meant to be listened to all the way through? By their mere existence? I.e. If the label put out an entire album and not just singles, it must be decent?
What do you all think? Word-of-mouth?
WaPo has a story about Mahoney calling for an investigatiion into the Foley emails: http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01764.html
Balrog @ 53
Don’t reset your TIVO yet! I don’t think ABC was the lead on this. Also, be sure to write to GM (they just signed up Sean Hannity as a spokesman for their “patriot” series.
Foley’s out.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITI.....index.html
Richmond @
56
Don’t worry, ABC has nothing I want to watch anyway. But I found myself at ABC.com and felt dirty.
News found elsewhere, so:
Embargo ON!
What a crazy list…
A quick glance gave me some songs to recommend…
3RD BASS – “The Gas Face” – pretty much sums up yesterday.
ANN PEEBLES – “Somebody’s on your case” all her Hi albums are so necessary.
ARTIFACTS – “What’s up now, Motherf*cker?” killer new jerz hip-hop.
BAR-KAYS – “Soul Finger” – who can forget the horn intro: (“mary had a little lamb”)
BOBBY “BLUE” BLAND – “I’m so tired” - netroots theme song
EDDIE KENDRICKS – “Keep on Truckin’” – netroots theme song (b-side)
HUSKER DU – “Bed of Nails”
JOE CUBA – “What a Baby” – this is what happens when you loose great musicians in the studio with five gallon bucket of bennies. You can practically hear their eyes popping out of their heads. Brilliant.
JORGE BEN – “Fuerza Bruta” – a brazilian version of the Tighten Up.
RUN-D.M.C. – “Raising Hell” – netroots theme song, bootleg.
SHORTY LONG – “here comes the judge” – please SCOTUS, dead this sh*t.
Ok, this is disgusting.
Anyone, who knows ANYTHING about Internet child predators knows this is text-book baiting.
Christy, you’ve dealt with these kinds of sleeze bags before as a prosecutor…would you agree that this kind of exchange may seem “innocent” on the surface, but is a common lead-in or baiting tactic?
Foley’s Dem opponent: check out timmahoneyforflorida.com.
From the looks of the site he looks like he could be very competitive. BA from West Virginia U; MBA from George Washington…. Sounds like he is someone business people could support.
WaPo link on the Foley resignation:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/
Bummer when those nasty emails get stuck in the toobz.
And may I thank the gentleman on the other side of the aisle.
A meme a day, that’s all we ask.
Had enough PERVERTS?
Andy Ternay @ 40
Yes, L7 played the role of the fictious band “Camel Lips” in Serial Mom
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @ 46
I remember when Capitol distro’d the first Beatles CDs in the ’80’s without bothering to digitally remaster the tracks…shipped out gold, returned platinum.
‘Eat it, just eat it’
;>)
The surge in CD sales back in the day was tied to the industry deliberately paring back manufacture of other formats…Same mechanicals as LP’s/cassettes, but 4X the wholesale price pre retail - Pigs at the trough. That’s where Sony got the ducats to buy Columbia, for example.
Frankly, I don’t think the format will die out…Audiophiles getting back into analog at the turn of the century was a bellwether moment, and people like to ‘own stuff’, in a tactile sense. A digital file that you can’t see or hold is a bit of a stretch, still.
Of course, the consumer mass will always get swung on a cord.
“Anyone, who knows ANYTHING about Internet child predators knows this is text-book baiting.”
Not only that zergle, this sick fuck was in charge of some committee overseeing child predators or something very similar.
Darkblack, any chance of a PhotoShop of Uncle Ernie (Keith Moon) with the rubber gloves and enema? Heard he had to resign from Congress today.
US House Missing and Exploited Children Caucus
Oh man does that piss me off!
Let’s think of some things to play,
Now the grownups have all gone away!
Donita 64 — “Serial Mom” — I remember that. The constumes were the bomb.
…oh and apologies to Donita and all for running in and going so OT all of a sudden. Very rude.
Jenn wonders about Donita’s spitcurls @ 54
This is where the new online world comes in. Back in the day FM radio played entire albums worth of music for their formats. In the mid 70s consultants screwed the radio and music businesses for a couple of decades by coming up with rigid formats to pigeonhole bands into.
These days though, you can find what used to be called AOR or Album Oriented Rock style formats in your friendly local music podcaster. Wanna hear the whole Coldplay CD? Find a podcaster who had a listening party with it.
You will find new music in the ways that people are finding them now: MySpace, ringtones, airplay on the radio, videos on cable music channels and YouTube, online ads, instant message links from friends and all the other ways bands are being broke these days. There’s more work involved now in breaking a band, but the tools are efficient, easy to use, and freely available in most cases - even to the unsigned garage band in Terre Haute.
Zergle @
71
Good point, sorry Donita.
New thread for Uncle Ernie, please.
rat bastahd @ 66
I remember someone (a repub) high up in theHomeland Security internet office also had to resign for similar reasons. I wonder if there is a bigger “double” picture here: control the web (bloggers); mine for underage prospects/pleasure.
Guaranteed there is worse to come than those emails. Bob Ney pled guilty to felonies and didn’t resign.
Somehow I imagine that this was not the first and only page…
Zergle @ 71
No worries. Do watcha gotta do
Jane Hamsher @ 70
I love the part of the scene where Donita spits tequila on the guy thats on fire and the flames explode a little and then she kicks him.
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @ 76
Well, I have studied with Lee Strasberg. There is Method to my madness
Well, this blog has been up for a week.
http://stopsexpredators.blogsp.....to-16.html
Google, today’s miracle.
Donita, I picked an artist at random and googled them. Their website came right up, so I e-mailed them to let them know about this list (included the link). The one I picked was Albion Jazz band. Their agent’s e-mail address was on their website. We’ll see what happens. I would LOVE to see every single artist show up to collect their royalties.
I too, am sorry for hijacking this thread. No need to pile on Foley, there’ll be plenty of others to do that.
Again, sorry.
Don’t tell me Congressman Foley is going to show up on the next Dateline “internet predator” series.
-GSD
I too, am sorry for going OT on this thread. No need to pile on Foley, there’ll be plenty of others to do that.
Again, sorry.
Professor Foland @ 74
According to ABC they have IM’s where he made explicit sexual comments to other pages that they will talk about tonight.
No one resigns this fast unless there is some serious evidence behind the story. He knows he’s in big trouble. If he was IM’ing kids, and they have those records, he’s looking at some serious legal problems.
Yeah, sorry Donita…we all love watching a fish get caught. Especially one with this kind of stench.
I too, am sorry for going OT on this thread. No need to pile on Foley (definitely no pun intended), there’ll be plenty of others to do that.
Again, sorry.
Let’s see:
Republican Duke Cunningham, the most corrupt congressman ever convicted this year.
Republican Claude Allen, Bush policy advisor, convicted of theft and fraud this year.
Republican Governor of Illinois convicted of corruption this year.
Republican Whitehouse procurement officer, David Safavian charged with corruption.
Republican Tom Delay, House Majority leader leaves house under ethics cloud.
(R) Bob Ney pleads guilty.
(R) Don Sherwood PA, pays settlement to mistress who alleged abuse.
Now R Mark Foley quits congress in a “live boy” scandal.
4 NH Republican operatives guilty in phone jamming scandal.
-GSD
Anyone I missed?
LindyH @ 81
1000 attagirls for that, I’m gonna see if there are some bands on there I know and do the same.
oh my:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list.....opass.html
Still haven’t got the hang of “edit this comment.” I’d appreciate any of the mods cleaning up my mess at 82 and 84. Thanks.
Fugazi & KISS on the same playlist…..I like ur style kid.
Sid
mc @ 86
Actually, I appreciate the OT (no offense meant for poster or other readers). There was not another more appropriate post up to post to and (personally) I tend to be a more “political” animal, then “musical” one.
GSD @ 85
Abramoff.
Bush JAR slips back to 40 percent in latest Rasmussen poll.
Bush JAR
I just looked at the list, this is SOOO crooked. Anybody who claims they can’t find Afrika Bambaataa is downright lying.
GSD - wasn’t there another Republican pederast in there somewhere - seems like Dept. Homeland Security. sad