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| Selling digital music to the USA from the UK |
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| posted by Confused on Wednesday March 26 2008 @ 12:02PM PDT |
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I'm raising this issue here in the hopes that someone at CD Baby
and/or someone running an independent label here in the UK
might be able to explain how to do this legally and with minimal
cost.
I would like to remain anonymous, but I have a very small (UK-
based) indie label, mostly self-releasing, and mostly original
material--but I've got a few cover songs on my releases.
The issue is, MCPS will only grant a licence to the end retailer
here in the UK, and will not issue a licence directly to the label
for digital product unless they are selling it directly from their
own website. Obtaining the type of licence required for
*retailing* digital music in the UK is immensely expensive, and is
a blanket licence which covers any and all content, and it WOULD
NOT apply to sales through iTunes or another third party. In the
US however, the label is responsible for acquiring a licence in
advance for a specific song just as for physical CDs. The retailer
stays completely out of it. The two systems are mutually
exclusive.
Harry Fox will not licence music to a label based in the UK, even
if the licence is specifically for sales in the USA (which is all it
would be good for anyway). The whole thing is bizarre and
incomprehensible.
The compulsory licence route would be far too labour intensive
and expensive. The way I see it you'd end up spending several
hours every month doing the statements for each song in
question. You'd also have to pay an accountant to certify an
annual statement each year for each song you have for sale in
the USA, and sending the statements alone would cost about
£10 a year for each publisher on each song. If you are selling
high volumes and have a staff to do the paperwork for you that's
probably no big deal, but I'm simply not at that stage yet.
The weirdest thing is that nobody (MCPS, aggregators, HFA, etc.)
seems to have any idea what I'm talking about. It's almost as if
other countries don't exist to these organisations and
companies. I can't believe that nobody's ever asked the question
before, but invariably when you ask them directly how to do it
they pass you off to some other equally clueless organisation or
just put you on "ignore" and stop answering your emails.
Aggregators normally get very quiet and/or tell you they won't
get involved and you are on your own when you start asking
about US licensing. They don't offer any suggestions, and are
totally unhelpful. If you press them for some sort of explanation,
they make it pretty clear they don't really want your business.
Why might that be? Surely they deal with this every day if they
service dozens of US-based digital retailers...or are they feigning
ignorance to protect themselves against allegations of copyright
infringement?
Releasing something in the UK is easy and inexpensive, and the
label need not worry about licences because the retailer does
that. I'm at the point now where I'm planning to release albums
and singles containing covers only in the UK and Europe until
they are making enough money to be worthwhile candidates for
the hassle of US distribution. This is sad because it defeats the
concept of digital media as a mechanism for independent artists
and labels to reach the world with their music.
Many would and do say just release it illegally and nobody will
notice. The very real threat of prohibitive US statutory penalties
aside, as a songwriter, my conscience would simply not allow
me to use someone else's art without paying for it, so that's not
an option.
Thanks for reading, and I hope somebody has some answers!
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I suppose the only viable alternatives to the situations you mention (do it on your own or release it illegally and hope you get unnoticed...) are services such as Royaltyshare.com and probably the new Rightsflow.com. Both are formed by people who came out of eMusic, who had an impressive royalty management system already in place something like 8 years ago. :)
Nicola Battista
http://www.musicblob.it
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