Hi all.

There's been a couple of scares around here in Australia with the MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Idiots, or something) busting ISPs and people running BitTorrent servers. This worries me because I run a BitTorrent server hosting my mixes, which under Australian law are uses of copyrighted works that aren't covered by fair use and therefore I should be paying to use them. I don't want to find a lawsuit on my doorstep or have my internet service pulled.

So I started doing the research into how much it would actually cost to use the CDs I have bought to make mixes which I give away. Due to some bizarreness, you have to register with both the APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association) to use the music, and the PPCA (Phonographic Performance Company of Australia) to use the recording. The PPCA, for DJs, charges about AUD$86 under Tarriff F (Mobile Discotheque Operators - how quaint). The APRA sounds reasonable at first - it's 8.5% of your gross takings from the performance of 'their' music.

Oh, but wait. If you're hosting more than 40 hours of discrete music mixes, your minimum charge is AUD$3,3600 PER QUARTER! WHo cares if you're not making a cent from your mixes, you've still got to pay around $13,500 per year for the pleasure.

You can bet that that fee doesn't go right back to the artists, too. Oh, both the APRA and the PPCA say they do, but I bet it goes to the Big Seven music copyright owners and disappears into the books from there.

Let's put it this way: at a conservative $20 per mix (cheap for the Antipodean Laidoutback mix, for example), I'd still have to get 168 people per quarter, or one and five sixths people to pay for a mix every single day, to pay my fees. You can bet that people aren't going to be queueing up for that one.

Oh,that's right; my mixes are copyrighted (if nothing else, by virtue of them being new arrangements). So if I'm registered with APRA (which, surprisingly, doesn't cost anything), some of those fees will come back to me because other people might be paying APRA to use my works. APRA doesn't attempt to measure this, from what I've seen, they just assume that everyone uses everything and distribute the money solely on the number of works you have registered with them. I'll bet that that gets nowhere near $3,360 per quarter.

All the evidence that I've seen shows that DJ mixes promote the music and industry far better than any record company. All the evidence I've seen shows that the music industry and its 'copyright owners' are the biggest pirates on the scene, as Courtney Love so nicely put it - they're ripping the artists off every way they can and want to make everyone pay for even hearing a song on someone else's radio. All the evidence I've seen shows that the music industry is not only gaining CD sales as internet downloads increase, but is shamelessly distorting and inventing figures to try and justify their pleas for more money.

God damn, it makes me angry.

I'd put a PayPal link on my site anyway, except for the fact that then I'd look even more like I'm profiting from my mixes and become even more of a target. I'll be buggered with a three-tined pitchfork and no lubricant before do that.

Have fun,

Paul

P.S. Congratulations for making it through this rant. I've released a new mix; it should be up on my web site in a couple of hours.

So if I am reading the right it sounds like if you have less than 40 hours of content you pay $86 + 8.5% and if you have more than that you pay 13,500 per year.

How the hell did they come up with that one(through the use of hallucinogens I would suspect). I would think what you pay would be up to the copyright owner of the music you sample.

Noooo, no no no; don't think for a moment that they let DJs escape so easily. You merely step down from Tier One to Tier Two, and pay only $1,122 per quarter. The full fee schedule and explanation is at http://www.apra.com.au/music-users/online_mobile-otherweb.asp

Have fun,

Paul

Maybe you should register with APRA and create a vast number of 20 second long works...

In fact, you could post a mix in 20 second segments zipped in a single archive. Then whoever downloads them could use an app to join them .

Here's the same rant written by someone else.

Firstly: I've finished the mix and its pages. You can find all that here.

The thing that depresses me here is that I can't see a way to change the system. You can't fight them, as they've made sure the law sides with them (by lobbying, paying sums of money to governments and other legal methods), and they have huge legal resources - literally tonnes of lawyers poring over every last loophole in the law so that there's no way you can argue with them. They can afford the $10,000/hr lawyers if need be. You can't.

You can't avoid them, or at least that's the impression they like to give. And internet searches being what they are, sooner or later they're going to work their way down the chain.

And yet the system they have set up is so patently unfair - they take your money in so many ways and no-one ever gets to find out where it goes. Most of the figures that anyone outside can glean indicate that only a tiny fraction of all the artists they allege to represent actually get any money from them at all, based on 0.1% of all radio time on popular radio stations. If you have anything to do with indie, alternative, dance or electronic music, your money does not go to the artists you bought. And there's no way to fight them on this - they aren't accountable to anyone but themselves.

I suggest everyone write to their government representatives telling them how unfair this is. I'm going to.

Have fun for a short while,

Paul