Recording Rap
President Cliff Walker and I attended Digital Distribution Negotiations in Washington D.C. on Jan 12th and 13th. Representatives from New York, Nashville, Chicago, Texas, L.A., and Canada, along with the RMA, ICSOM and ROPA met at AFM attorney George Cohen’s offices. Discussions included Digital Performance Rights/Royalties which will be paid to side musicians. The AFM will be collecting and distributing the payments. Sound Exchange has a fund for musicians and background singers which will track their work. For more information, visit their web site at www.soundexchange.com . Negotiations will be held every few months as the AFM fine tunes the digital portion of the Sound Recording Labor Agreement which will expire 1/31/05. I will be updating you in this article as I receive information.
Looking back at 2003 and all the many changes that have taken place in the recording industry, our Local exceeded the prior year’s electronic media figures. The grand total so far is $1,301,000.00. Recording is $701,000.00 and Commercials are $292,510.00. The musicians are involved in new projects and are referring recording and commercial musicians who are joining every week. I feel very positive for this coming year.
I urge each musician to contact me when called for a project. Don’t assume the producer is filing a contract. I am cleaning up mistakes for musicians that are missing special payments for major artists. The biggest problem is new use. I have musicians that worked with artists 30 years ago and “thought they were on contracts” or “made their own deals”. Now they are angry that other musicians are receiving new use payments for the same artist. The federation can only pay a new use by documentation on the B Report form. I’m trying to help but I can’t make miracles.
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