[rumori] digital music: SIAE strikes again


Nicola Battista (djbatmanATtin.it)
Tue, 23 Nov 1999 20:49:16 +0100


a few days ago, SIAE, the italian royalty collection agency, sent a mail to
www.rockit.it and then after a few telephonic contacts they asked Rockit to
pay some millions in lire (something between 2000 and 3000 U$$
approximately) for distibuting short (30 seconds) real audio samples of
music on the internet.
Most of the stuff on Rockit is no-profit, indie, obscure, not protected by
SIAE... and even if some of the music is provided by SIAE members (they
recently reviewed a cd-r EP I made with Modra Stjerne and put a real audio
clip of one of the tracks, "Straniero"... for example this track is
registered with SIAE) the site is like a no-profit 'zine and the bands love
so there's no problem for the free clips...
anyway, after being threatened by this entity, Rockit removed all music
from the site.
I am now cooperating with Alcei (www.alcei.it, sort of italian EFF) and its
president Andrea Monti, who is a lawyer, to help Rockit having their music
back online (at least the non-SIAE stuff) and possibly to verify whether or
not there is a chance to modify the new SIAE licence.
I was wondering if any of the listmembers know what happens in the US with
ASCAP/BMI licenses... do they ask fan pages or no-profit sites like rockit
who dont have full tracks in quality mp3 but just small samples etc. to pay
for a license?
Did any of you in the US or other countries hear of similar problems with
other societies?

bye,
Nicola (Dj Batman) Battista

"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief"
(Bono)

----------------------------------------------------
Rumori, the Detritus.net Discussion List
to unsubscribe, send mail to majordomoATdetritus.net
with "unsubscribe rumori" in the message body.
----------------------------------------------------
Rumori list archives & other information are at
http://detritus.net/contact/rumori
----------------------------------------------------



Home | Detrivores | Rhizome | Archive | Projects | Contact | Help | Text Index


[an error occurred while processing this directive] N© Detritus.net. Sharerights extended to all.