AT57

Are New Digital Music Payments Enough?

You say, "But now Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick is fighting back, saying maybe music labels should pay them! His argument: music games make songs more popular, driving paid song downloads, album sales, and ticket sales."

Good for him...Didn't Activision have to receive express permission from Aerosmith (one of the games' music partners) to use their likeness AND THEIR MUSIC in the body of the game? Did the band's agents give that permission in exchange for a fee payable to the artist? RIAA shoud have NO claim to performance royalties in this case. Also, it seems that the RIAA's willingness to accept a 'percentage of revenue' model from Rhapsody and other music subscription services like it, where anyone with an analog receiver and CD burner attached to their computer can take copies of SELECTED MUSIC at will, and not take the same deal with Internet streaming stations where selective music piracy is far more difficult, leads me to beileve that the RIAA sees linkage between Internet streaming and broadcast radio, where they have been unsuccessfully fighting for the performance royalty for 70 years.

Smarten up, RIAA...forcing Internet only operations like Pandora to die in their cribs won't make up for your industry's shortsighted, stupid sales model mistakes of the past decade. And expecting the 'old' radio industry to pay you to promote your product now since you believe that promotional value has diminished with the advent of the Internet- see above - is even more short sighted and stupid. Will you be looking for a performance royalty from movie producers, TV producers and the like for the inclusion of songs into their soundtracks?
THEY ARE HELPING YOUR ARTISTS BY DOING THAT...NOT STEALING FROM THEM. Your industry may be, with the possible exception of investment banking, the most stupidly run industry ever.
Go figure out how to monetize music without trying to kill the media that wants to help you sell music. One potential bailout is enough, thanks.