April 10, 2015
Vol 2 | Issue 3
In This Issue
Congress Considering SoundExchange System for Producer Payments 1
SoundExchange Suing Muzak for Underpaying Artists 2
Long Term Deals with NPR and Corporation for Public Broadcasting 3
SXatSXSW 3
Events 5
Congress Considering SoundExchange
System for Producer Payments
In March, U.S. House of Representatives Members Joe Crowley (D-NY) and Tom Rooney
(R-FL) introduced the Allocation for Music Producers Act or the AMP Act (H.R. 1457) — a bill
that would formalize into law the long-held SoundExchange policy of honoring a “letter of
direction” from an artist to re-direct royalties to producers and engineers who are part of their
creative process. The bill would also address royalties for producers who worked on sound
recordings made before the digital performance right became law in 1995. The AMP Act is also
supported by The Recording Academy.
Since inception, SoundExchange has proactively supported artists’ requests to direct payments
to producers and engineers through the letter of direction process. This practice saves time and
effort for both artists and producers, and it is consistent with SoundExchange’s mission to create
efficiencies that allow artists and music creators to focus on the creative process. If passed, this
bill would go even further to cement the ability for producers and engineers to collect their
hard-earned revenue.
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SoundExchange supports the AMP Act to ease the
distribution of royalties. With its passage, the creative
community can focus on what they do best — create
the music everyone loves while SoundExchange
focuses on the rest. “The AMP Act will make it easier
for producers and artists to ensure everyone involved in
the creative process is paid for their contributions,” says
President and CEO Michael Huppe. “We fully support
adding this practice into law.”
The AMP Act will create a permanent and consistent
process by which producers and engineers will receive
the royalties due to them for the contributions they
make to the creation of music.
SoundExchange looks forward to working together
with these leaders to ensure that these changes are
incorporated swiftly, completely, and in a way that is
easy to understand so that all are compensated for the
work they do.
But SoundExchange’s presence around the issue isn’t enough. True change comes when everyone
unifies with one voice. Tell your congressional representative to support the AMP Act by clicking here.
SoundExchange Suing Muzak for
Underpaying Artists
On behalf of artists and rights holders, SoundExchange has filed a lawsuit against Muzak, a whollyowned subsidiary of Canada’s Mood Media Corporation, for underpayment. The lawsuit arises from
Mood Media’s attempt to acquire new music services and pay for sound recordings at older, below
market rates that were intended for a very limited set of companies.
“Muzak is playing a shell game to cheat artists and rights holders out of royalties. It is bad enough that
a handful of legacy services are permitted to pay below market value for the music at the heart of their
business; but with this latest move, Muzak adds insult to injury by attempting to extend this unfair rate to
newer, ineligible services. Muzak’s attempt at gaming the system highlights the ineffectiveness of having
different rules and rate standards for music service companies. It gives older companies an unjustified
competitive advantage, and leaves the door wide open for attempts at abuse,” said Michael Huppe,
president and CEO of SoundExchange.
For more on the lawsuit, check out these helpful FAQs.
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www.soundexchange.com | April 10, 2015
Long Term Deals with NPR and
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
“We always prefer negotiated solutions with digital services, provided that they ensure appropriate
payment to artists and rights holders.” That statement, from SoundExchange President and CEO
Michael Huppe, sums up the importance of the deal reached between SoundExchange, NPR, and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to set royalty rates for the next five years for webcasting by
public radio stations.
In fact, this is SoundExchange’s second settlement agreement in five months with noncommercial
webcasters. In October 2014, SoundExchange reached an agreement with College Broadcasters Inc.,
which represents college media outlets.
The NPR and CPB deal was struck in recognition of unique circumstances and missions of these
organizations and was designed to compensate the creators of the music used in their programming.
For more on the settlement, check out this informative article on RAIN News.
SXatSXSW
In case you weren’t able to make it to Austin, Texas for SXSW 2015, look no further for a quick rundown
of everything SoundExchange was involved with throughout the festival!
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SX Hang Event — SoundExchange sponsored a Texas-style lunch for artists at Iron Works BBQ and
the turnout was great. The SoundExchange Industry Relations team and Communications team met
with twenty-nine unregistered artists and bands, all of whom have money waiting for them. During
the lunch, SoundExchange staff explained the registration process, discussed why SoundExchange
is vital in today’s music industry and made sure the artists knew exactly how to get their money. And
the best part about the discussions — they all took place over a plate of ribs and a BBQ sandwich! But
don’t just take SoundExchange’s word for it. Several of the artists were especially complimentary:
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www.soundexchange.com | April 10, 2015
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SOUNDExchange SESSIONS — The second annual
SOUNDExchange SESSIONS was held at the iconic
Stubb’s BBQ on Friday, March 20 and it didn’t disappoint.
The showcase saw brilliant performances from all the
artists even in spite of torrential downpours that struck
Austin that night. Idolator wrote of the performances by
showcasing artists Clean Bandit and Jess Glynne, “Both
acts engaged the Stubb’s crowd with such energy that
we forgot about the pouring rain.”
Other performances throughout the night of music
garnered even more acclaim. Bleachers front man
Jack Antanoff used his natural charisma to delight
the soaking wet crowd and headliner Marina & the
Diamonds delivered a dynamite set that landed them
on Buzzfeed’s list of the 11 greatest performances
throughout the festival.
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Panels — SoundExchange staff appeared on two panels
throughout the conference. The first, “Everything You
Know is Obsolete: Units vs ARPU,” featured senior vice
president of Strategic Initiatives, Mark Eisenberg as well
as Tom Silverman (Founder and Executive Director, New
Top: Bleachers performs at the SOUNDExchange
Music Seminar), Jonathan Dworkin (EVP, Digital Strategy
SESSIONS (Photo Credit: Luke Lovell of 1215
& Business Development, Warner Music Group) and Chris Creative). Bottom: Montage of artists performing
at the SOUNDExchange SESSIONS (Photo Credit:
Andrew Cutraro of Fountain Studio).
Carey (Media Insight Consulting). During the hour long
discussion, panelists talked about the necessity of changing
the way the world looks at music revenue numbers. Conversation ranged from different forms of music
consumption around the world, the need for a change in marketing around how individuals talk about
music subscriptions and the importance of looking ahead to what music streaming will be like in the
future. The panel discussed the importance of altering the key performance indicators used to measure
music consumption — from “units sold” via a transaction model (e.g., CD’s and downloads) to ARPU
— the average (annualized) revenue derived per user, a metric which is independent of the number of
units (sales or play-counts) consumed. The panel also examined industry revenues from the vantage
point of “net wholesale” label and artist revenues, in contrast to retailer or service-operator revenues.
The second panel, “CLE 7: Still Screaming About Streaming,” featured senior counsel, Licensing
and Enforcement, Brad Prendergast as well as moderator John Simson (Attorney, Lommen Abdo
PA), Kenneth Steinthal (Attorney, King & Spalding) and Jay Rosenthal (Partner, Mitchell Silberberg &
Knupp). This panel brought together lawyers from throughout the music industry to discuss the latest
licensing issues facing artists, labels, songwriters, publishers and digital music services. Throughout
the hour long session, Brad touched on legal issues in music and emerging tech.
That’s all for SXSW 2015 — see you back in Austin in 2016!
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Events
The 14th Annual RAIN Summit West
Las Vegas, Nev.
April 12, 2015
10th Annual ASCAP “I Create Music” EXPO
Los Angeles, Calif.
April 30 – May 2, 2015
Music Biz 2015
Nashville Tenn.
May 12–14, 2015
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