Location of artists now given at Magnatune

The Magnatune web site now displays the location (in the world) of each musician, under the "details" link:

For the USA, the State and Country is displayed. Outside the USA, the City and Country is displayed. If you click on the location, you are taken to http://magnatune.com/artists/locations where the location of every artist is given:

and you are taken to the part of the page for the artist you just clicked on.

A big reason for doing this are the performing rights collection societies, who have exclusive, and often usurious contracts with their artists.

In the USA, ASCAP and BMI were sued by the government, and under a consent decree must let their musicians be non-exclusive. This means that ASCAP and BMI must recognize agreements directly between a licensor and the music rights holder (in our case, that's the musician, with Magnatune acting as their legally authorized representative and sub-licensor).

This means that organizations licensing music from us in the USA obtain a performing rights royalty waiver (no ASCAP/BMI fees) and it also means that organizations not in the USA can license our music and get a waiver, but only if they exclusively play USA (ASCAP/BMI) artists.

We've had to defend our license before lawyers from PRS/MCPS in London, England, and we won. The key point in that discussion was that non-USA jurisdictions need to keep to musicians from the USA (ASCAP/BMI musicians) and then PRS recognizes our waiver.

I've modified the "public space" license (ie, restaurants, cafes, art galleries) to explain this reality.

The new pages make it easy for people licensing music to stick to Magnatune's USA musicians.

This is what the public space licensing page now says (at the bottom):

A Performing Rights Society (ie, ASCAP / BMI / PRS / GEMA / SESAC) fee waiver is granted with this license so that you do not have to pay any fees to them if you are playing exclusively our music in your public space. If you are in the USA, you may license any music you like. If you are outside of the USA, you should only license music by musicians inside the USA. You can be sure you are safe, as we have successfully defended our music license before lawyers from PRS/MCPS (the UK's performing music rights collections society) and won: the crucial point is that if you are playing our music outside of the USA, you must only use music from USA musicians. Please note that the collection societies will only recognize this waiver if you play our music exclusively, and never mix in unlicensed music from other sources.

Comments

[Ian]

Looks good, but I see a bit of data that needs scrubbing in the locations ... "USA, Texas" vs. "USA, TX" for one, plus a few others scattered around. Nice improvement though!

[John Buckman]

I see a bit of data that needs scrubbing in the locations

Whoops, you're right. I think I've fixed all the mistakes now.

-john

[Nathan Jones]

Still confused...

1. What are the risks to non-USA customers using non-USA music? That a collection agency in a different country might get upset?

2. "... never mix in unlicensed music from other sources." But mixing with licensed music from other sources should be okay, right?

[John Buckman]

1. What are the risks to non-USA customers using non-USA music? That a collection agency in a different country might get upset?

First, the issue only applies to people playing music in a public space, as this falls under a monopoly collections agency in every country I know of. For example, clothing stores need to pay performing rights agency fees to play any music in their stores. This problem doesn't apply to other uses of licensed music.

The only risk is if you're trying to avoid paying their fees. The way the system works is that each agency has its own contracts with the musicians in its country, and each contract has different terms. In the USA, the contract allows musicians to do their own deals, such as with Magnatune.

So... the "risk" is simply that if you have a public space and you play licensed music from Magnatune that isn't from the USA, your local collections agency may not recognize your license and may insist you pay their fees.

2. "... never mix in unlicensed music from other sources." But mixing with licensed music from other sources should be okay, right?

Again, this is only for public spaces, such as restaurants and clothing stores. Most performing rights collection agencies have a simple fee structure that says "if you play any music that we can collect on, even just one song, you pay the same fee as if you played nothing but songs we can collect on"

If you play music that you licensed elsewhere, make sure that it's performing-rights-royalty-free, otherwise you may have to pay the full fee to your performing rights agency.

[Steph Wills]

I like it. Any chance of linking the artist location to Google Maps as well? For example:

Location of artist: Edinburgh, Scotland (Google Map)

[John Buckman]

Any chance of linking the artist location to Google Maps as well? For example:

That's not overkill? That's useful?

[Steph Wills]

I don't see it as overkill. And while I'm not sure how useful it is, it's certainly convenient. But maybe it's just me.

[Ryan Sawhill]

I wouldn't call it overkill; more a waste of someone's (i.e. John's) time. I love me some gmaps just as much as the next person, and so if it's super-easy for you to implement, sure. I really think it's just not necessary though.