Netlabels vs GEMA

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Lee
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Post by Lee »

i've had my socan contracts for over a month trying to decide if i should sign them or not becase of these kinds of issues. I first became aware of the conflicts between cc and the collecting society's after i noticed pentagonik and the netlag events in berlin were making it known they were actively boycotting gema. i have artists on my own netlabel in canada who are registered with socan.... puts the future of the label in limbo if socan follows suit.
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Ronny Pries
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Post by Ronny Pries »

there is a solution for members of collecting societies.

you have to discard the rights of sale for the digital domain from your membership contract. call your collecting society agent and tell them to restrict your personal contract to physical media only and no further costs for netlabel owners will be charged.

i bet there's surely a catch with contract changes regarding to quarters but if you're a registered artist and unsure what to do, this will definitely improve the situation.

ronny
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patrick bateman
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Post by patrick bateman »

Ronny Pries wrote:there is a solution for members of collecting societies.

you have to discard the rights of sale for the digital domain from your membership contract. call your collecting society agent and tell them to restrict your personal contract to physical media only and no further costs for netlabel owners will be charged.

i bet there's surely a catch with contract changes regarding to quarters but if you're a registered artist and unsure what to do, this will definitely improve the situation.

ronny
I have never heard, and never seen a contract where this was possible ??
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Post by naw »

your over reacting I just got off the phone with SOCAN here in canada
(socan.ca for thoughs of you who do not know) any how they dont even have any rules for digital downloads at this point and time never mind creative commons licenceing... they basically look at your music as music how ever its released is the artists problem they are only concerned with getting you money for the music that you can collect money on... so if you get air play, or licnence your tracks to film or tv stuff like that... a release the only issue would be for mechanical but that again is licening and is the responciblity of the percon whos buying the use of your music from you or your rep for your music... so JP unknot your undies its a non issue for us candians...
neil.
aka naw
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Lee
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Post by Lee »

good to know socan isn't considering the same sort of system for the time being, but that still leaves the issue with gema. if i sign my contract with socan, will gema attempt to collect from content providers in germany? that brings up an important question regarding fasttrack, if i sign a contract with socan, even tho socan has no download rules, is my music subject to the download rules of other collecting societies?

-liam
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Post by naw »

from the vaguediscuss list on the smae topic

SOCAN also have no idea when the issue will even be brought back to the table to discuss it; it's essentially a non-issue for SOCAN
members (whether canadian or not).

interestingly, it's also partially a non-issue for artists registered with other performance rights orgs. i can't speak for
CD-released works, but an artist registered with (for example) the GEMA can have a recording (which is not released on CD) up on a
canadian-based and controlled website because the GEMA only gets what the SOCAN sends them; SOCAN is responsible for collecting
for canadian-based "performances", and since they (SOCAN) don't/can't control webaudio, they collect no revenues for web diffused
works (in canada).
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Lee
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Post by Lee »

i just got off the phone with socan as well and the representative said that if i sign my contract with socan my music will be subject to all the rules and regulations of gema in germany, and that gema will attempt to collect on my behalf based on the rules specific to that country. so basically if i sign with socan my releases on pentagonik and tropic will become illegal in germany unless both labels pay gema my collecting fees for every download.

i understand that in canada its all good, the problem is with gema and the regional rules and regulations in germany.

liam
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Post by rockmachine »

foem also had to take offline several tracks, mixes, eps... due to that reason. its the old story.. when an artistgets registered, we would have to pay...

one way to fix the problem is to use an alias for net downloads.
http://foem.info

http://livesets.com

free music all over the place. enjoy
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