(via boingboing)
Sensationalist headlines just sound good to me some times. For this write-up, the title refers to the fact that Sony pays its recording artists royalties on iTunes downloads as if the download were a sale of music. This means lower royalty payments. However, when a consumer downloads a tune from iTunes, Sony has a license agreement that restricts the user’s rights, basically stating that the download is a licensing of content, not a sale of goods.
NEW YORK – Rock bands Cheap Trick and The Allman Brothers Band are suing Sony Music, claiming they are being shortchanged on royalties for songs downloaded legally over the Internet.
. . .
According to the suit, the record company is treating digital downloads like traditional record sales, rather than licensed music, triggering a different royalty deal.
Under that old rubrik, the record company deducts fees for the kind of extra costs they used to incur when records were pressed on vinyl, including packaging charges, restocking costs and losses due to breakage.
Tracks sold over the Internet usually go for about 99 cents. About 70 cents of the sale price goes to Sony. The bands are getting about 4 1/2 cents per song, according to the suit, rather than the approximately 30 cents they claim is rightfully theirs.
Something smells fishy here. Anyone know what that is?
[tags]Sony, iTunes, Screw the consumer[/tags]