A good chance for a Songwriters Strike in 2008?
I think that Songwriters and Composers may very well go on Strike in 2008.
Why?
I have been watching the writers strike in Hollywood with great interest. To me, this is another great example of how the new transparency of information and the explosion in user-propelled media has empowered the 'Creatives' to realize that they are where it all starts. They chose to finally make their demands, regardless of the 'you'll never work in this town again's, and to go up against a closed and outmoded system that has left them little control over their fate, so far.
But here is the thing that's rattling my cage: I think it's basically the same situation for songwriters and composers.
Traditionally, they have put their fate into the hands of publishers who in return have put their lots into rights organizations and societies, so called PROs (Performing Rights Organizations) and MROs (Music Rights Organizations). That all worked okay - some would say - until the Internet came around (darn you Vince Cerf) but the result is a seriously monopolistic system in which a writer does not have a lot of choices over if, how, when and for what his / her music is licensed; unless they are at the top of the heap it's take it or leave it.
In Europe, all writers must be a member of a society such as GEMA, SACEM, BUMA, SUISA etc, in order to collect any public performance royalties, and this is an exclusive relationship (yes, really). You're either in or you're out (and I am out now, btw, meaning no longer a member of GEMA), and if you don't like their licensing policies or their retroactive approach to the Internet that's just too bad.
But after 10 years of watching these copyright functionaries fighting the Internet and all technology-driven changes every single step of the way, it is painfully obvious that the rights societies and most industry bodies (such as the NMPA, CISAC, MPA etc) have still not seen it fit to get on with it and actually come up with a realistic business model for licensing all those new ways of using music on the Internet (see the latest disaster with Pandora, in the UK). In other words, they are still humming and puffing, and falling all over themselves with legacy issues and internal paradigm-clashing - and thereby effectively disconnecting the writers and composers from the flow of new money that comes from the web.
Instead of offering workable solutions in some sort of timely fashion, most of these organizations (well, okay, there are some exceptions, such as SOCAN in Canada, and to some degree the American societies, namely BMI) have become (in)famous for NOT LICENSING anything that does not fit their existing schemes, which, needless to say, are as aged as a nice bottle of red wine. Just ask anyone that is in the Internet business and they will tell you stories that will make your hair stand up ('how dare you want to use our music!"). Talk about not serving the market! Only monopolies can get away with that (remember when the telephone company was in that position... ouch, never again).
And of course, I grant them, they have tried (some of them), there are reasons, there are real hurdles, there are semi-valid excuses, there are 100s of ways of explaining WHY this is still a problem - but the bottom line is that songwriters and composers are STILL not getting paid for the use of their music on the Internet, to a very large extent.
No, not because those new web companies don't want to pay (they do). Not because there is no money in revenue sharing or advertising or UGC (there is). Not because on the Net everyone wants it all for free (they don't).
No, just because most of the publishers and the rights organizations (i.e. the intermediaries in-control) still aren't ready! They have taken forever to address these issues, they don't want to rock the boat and challenge their golfing buddies at the record labels - and because ultimately their top interest is in keeping the status-quo, not in creating a new system that would be beneficial primarily for the CREATORS and the USERS. These guys are neither evil nor stupid - but it seems they just won't move until the heat comes on.
And so, heat we may get this year, I think.
Songwriters around the world (take a look at Canada, for instant) are starting to get seriously ticked-off at the lack of revenues from the internet-based usage of their work (do you see the parallel to the writers strike now?). And they are tired of the excuses they get from their publishers and rights organizations. And they hear about the 100s of Millions of $$$ made from advertising revenue shares that they'll never get. And they watch 100s of video sharing sites sync their music to video. And Billions of people listening to their songs on social networks, for free - because there is no standard license.
I think there is a good chance they'll get smart and look towards the real holdup here: their own representatives, the ancient system of how things used to work.
It's up to the Publishers and their Rights Organizations to preempt this development, i.e. to license the use of music on the Internet now, here, today.
Or you may just have a mutiny: no new songs written until the question of remuneration is solved. Until a new blanket license is in effect that allows every internet portal, every telco, every ISP, every web broadcaster, every social network to use my music and share the revenues with me (hey - does that sound like Radio?). Until my representatives deliver value, and until they give both me and the users (aka fans) and the 'people formerly known as consumers' want we need.
The problem is not the users and the companies that serve them - the problem is within.
