Apple is threatening to close iTunes if publishers win their deserved rise in payment (an extra 6 cents per track).

Oh yeah?

So if Apple pulls I-tunes, and EUK are unable to supply Woolworths, Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons and Zavvi, where am I going to get my physical and digital music from?

Now to the average person, this statement sounds a bit like "Ford refuses to make cars anymore", the answer to which is of course "buy a Volvo!"

With I Tunes is does not quite work like this, many of the download companies actually run from the I Tunes download engine.

However, 7 Digital does not so they could well be rubbing their hands in anticipation.

I do have a question about I Tunes payments though, all my MP3`s are published by me, but how are we going to take the extra monies from the pitiful "preview" fees? They are not worth getting the calculator out of the draw for!

dixie wrote:
So if Apple pulls I-tunes, and EUK are unable to supply Woolworths, Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons and Zavvi, where am I going to get my physical and digital music from?
7digital and eMusic.com. You don't really need anything else.

Apple is threatening to close iTunes if publishers win their deserved rise in payment

The story is a bit more complicated:

a) Short term:
Apple doesn't want to raise the price for downloads. They don't want to pay more to the labels, who get (about) 70 cents for every song sold. So the issue is the revenue split between labels and publishers.

b) Long term:
The labels, Apple and other internet companies are lobbying for a new system. Instead of paying a fixed rate (at the moment 9 cent) for the "mechanical" rights, they want to calculated the publishers share as a percentage (4,8%) of revenues.

The Copyright Royalty Board has left the mechanical rate for downloads unchanged: It will be 9,1 cent for the next five years.

For ringtones the rate will be increased to 24 cent.

In my previous post I got the numbers mixed up: The DiMa-Companies (including Apple) wanted a lower fixed rate (4,8 cents) or a rate based on revenue (6 % of "applicable" revenue).

I see the rate has been maintained at 9.1%. Does this men songwriters get 4.59% (50% if the split is 50/50 with publishers)?

Also, is this just for the US? What is the rate for Europe?

I see the rate has been maintained at 9.1%.

No, not % (per cent).

In the US, the mechanial rate is a fixed amount:
9,1 CENTS per song (CDs, downloads)

Yesterday the Copyright Royalty Board established a new mechanical rate for Ringtones: 24 CENTS per Ringtone.

In Europe, mechanials are calculated as a percentage of price (around 10%).

The split is usually 50/50 between publishers & writers.

Question.

Does E Music run from the Napster engine or ITunes?

I have noted that the music we put out is always on those two sites (Napster and E Music) a lot earlier than the others.
It is also of note that an album which we deleted, was correctly removed from I Tunes, as we wished, but is still available on other download sites, no worries, we do get paid for it, but it is going to interfere with a forthcoming release in which some of the tracks will be re-packaged.
The album that we "deleted" was quite literally an experimental download release and I don`t want many of the tracks heard any more than I want the awful sleeve viewed.

DJones wrote:
I see the rate has been maintained at 9.1%.

No, not % (per cent).

In the US, the mechanial rate is a fixed amount:
9,1 CENTS per song (CDs, downloads)

Yesterday the Copyright Royalty Board established a new mechanical rate for Ringtones: 24 CENTS per Ringtone.

In Europe, mechanials are calculated as a percentage of price (around 10%).

The split is usually 50/50 between publishers & writers.
Duh, I see I also talk about "men songwriters". So much for my pyting skllis!