As you may have noticed via the masthead above the column (in the print version), I run Nialler9.com, a music blog that is now in its fifth year of operation. Last week, I received an email from the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) which represents bands, composers, artists and songwriters. IMRO sent emails to four prominent Irish music blogs (Nialler9, Asleep on a Compost Heap, The Torture Garden and MP3Hugger) saying as these blogs are making copyrighted music available online, they are liable to pay a licence.
The licence in question, the IMRO/MCPSI Limited Online Exploitation Licence (LOEL) covers the use of music online by small scale/non-commercial companies and individuals whose gross revenue is less than €7,000.
Now of course, in black and white terms, music blogs are covered by this blanket licence and all the music bloggers in question have no problem paying royalties if that is what is required. Currently, Nialler9 is the only site which actively takes advertising while the rest are distinctly non-commercial. The bigger issue here is by taxing amateur and hobby bloggers who don’t have any money available at their disposal to pay these licences (from €150 - €750 per year depending on the situation), IMRO will be effectively putting up a significant financial barrier to music blogs in this country resulting in the decimation of a now-vital part of the Irish music landscape.
Even more importantly, music blogs are the first rung on the ladder for many unsigned and independent bands before radio and print. These bands are willingly sending their music to bloggers giving them permission to post their songs online. IMRO are saying that bands registered with them do not have the right to give their own recorded works for use on a blog or any other site. If music blogs disappear, these artists will suffer as the promotion they receive from blogs will no longer be available to them.
In another case, Richter Collective – a small Irish-based independent label who include The Redneck Manifesto, Adebisi Shank and Bats on their roster were told they would have to pay IMRO to post their bands tracks on the label website. What next? Will a band be asked to pay to post their own songs on their own sites?
According to IMRO, “a website should be licensed in each territory it is made available in”. So does that mean, as this licence only covers Ireland that music blogs and sites should obtain and pay for a licence in every country in the world? If this is true, running a music blog is going to cost thousands of euro per year. The whole thing highlights how utterly ill-fitting these territorial licences are when applied to the world wide web.
By the time you read this, the other music bloggers and I will have met with IMRO to voice our concerns but it is the bands who can make a difference, the people who IMRO represent. A lot of artists have come out in support of the music blogs with The Cast of Cheers – a band who first gained significant traction online, pulling out of an IMRO showcase gig last Saturday along with MIA Sparrow in protest. Hopefully, by an opt-out clause or otherwise, an agreement can be reached to continue to allow artists to benefit from the existence of music blogs.
Update from the meeting yesterday.
Features
Fri, May 7, 2010