As someone quite clearly in the hobby category I was baffled by the email I received. I don’t, and could not, turn a penny off my own blog, and the few times I’ve covered Irish bands its been through the hosting of MP3s I was sent by the bands own PR people. And my inbox, like any other Irish blogger’s I’m sure, fills with about 20-30 requests to host MP3s (mostly made by Irish bands) a day. What a laughably ironic mess. Am I to pay IRMO a few hundred quid a year for the ‘privilege’ of providing bands with free publicity. I f*cking think not and am currently putting an email together to say much the same to IRMO.

You’d be surprised how artists will stay silent on this and pocket the cash (no offence intended to any artist!). Radio – community, commercial, publicly funded – both local and national provide valuable exposure to artists of all genres and are obliged to pay royalties. Stations get “pestered” everyday, bands put lists of station request lines on their sites. Airplay is the most vital part of artist promotion both for their recorded work and gigs and continues to be in this digital age. In the USA, radio does not pay royalties in recognition of this fact. If there is going to be a waiver of royalties for use of copyrighted work where the primary beneficiary is the artist themselves then it should apply across all media (or reduce it for certain pogrammes, blogs).
(DOI: posted as a personal opinion but I am employed within the radio medium)

Bands are between a rock and a hard place here. There’s no way they’re going to quit IMRO over it. If this actually happens maybe bands can send bloggers unregistered songs. Or send bloggers a song before they register it.

@topic of bands caring or not

repeating myself from elsewhere, this is a really minor level of the kind of pay to play scenario 100% of bands contend with in this country. If the blogger can draw the numbers to cover their costs, then they can have a blog, if they cant then thats that. I don’t know if its fair or unfair or wrong or right, but it might be why bands aren’t running to the helm with the bloggers, as its a seldom covered topic in the music pages.

I suppose promoters would be too generous with ye olde press passes if the financial conditions of the gig made it into every review.

Jim, is there any chance the Ticket could get in touch with an IMRO rep and run a short piece clarifying the issue?

I’m sure they are far more reasonable than they’ve made themselves look, and a few quotes from somebody who works in the organisations might give everybody a bit more peace of mind. It would be worth the IMRO’s while as well, as this isn’t exactly proving a PR victory for them as it stands.

@dave I really don’t think that this will deter IMRO or any other copyright collection agency. The collect royalties from all radio stations including community and not for profit stations around the world. They know what will happen next. There will be a fuss and one blog will pay up and the rest will follow (or vanish). The result. Artist gets their coverage and their royalty.

Vinnie @ 11 – like you, I’m also trying to “understand exactly what is going on here and what the long-term implications of this might be before jumping in with an opinion”.

To do so, it helps to get the reflections and thoughts of people involved, such as your good self, a musician, a member of The Jimmy Cake and (I am presuming this and am open to correction) a member of IMRO. We have heard from the bloggers already many, many times, but the musicians are a little quieter.

Yes, like you, I believe it is “complicated” and (probably like you – again an assumption) I can appreciate both sides of the issue. Given this, I’d love to get some insights from you, if you have any to offer?

Jim, artists still have to register each song with IMRO or that song doesn’t earn anything. IMRO doesn’t automatically collect for an entire catalogue. My suggestion was to do with individual unregistered songs. For example that song could be sent out to bloggers with a note saying that this track will become registered on XX date (the album launch date perhaps). A blogger’s exclusive?

Ger – thanks for that. Would be intersted to know what you learn from IMRO, if you want to share that

me – ah, I see what you mean. However, if you have a look at Nialler9’s post and especially Q1 in the FAQ, you’ll see this might not be possible (reproduced below). It seems that once you’re in with IMRO, you’re in for everything.

Q: If tracks are provided to bloggers with permission and are cleared for promo from bands, labels are these covered by this or are these outside the licence?

According to IMRO, if an artist, composer or publisher has registered with IMRO (or PRS in the UK / ASCAP in the US), then the MCPSI-IMRO (LOEL) licence must be obtained. Furthermore, if a composer, artist or publisher has done this, then they do not have the right to give full permission to allow their own track to be downloaded on a site. What I can gather, is that if a label is represented by PPI (Phonographic Performance Ireland) then an additional licence is required for use of the sound recordings. See the member list here. I’m not 100% sure if an artist can waive their rights in any circumstance above.

dudley – cheers for that. I think most bloggers would go along with that. Are you an IMRO member btw, if you don’t mind me asking?

I think it’s funny when I read all these people complaining that they only get less than a euro a year from IMRO for radio play etc. It’s not their fault that you don’t get sufficient airplay to earn enough for a bag of chips.
And even if bands do threaten to leave IMRO in protest, it won’t matter. they collect for artists all over the world due to the reciprocal agreements. Irish Music Rights Organisation means the Irish ‘version’ of the music rights organisation, like PRS are the British one. It doesn’t mean that they only represent Irish bands. Of course the majority of the royalties that they collect goes overseas. There are more royalties due to overseas artists because the radio plays more music by overseas artists than they do local ones. IMRO payments reflect airplay. Airplay is the problem there. We haven’t earned more than a fiver in the last 2 years because we haven’t released anything in about 3…
And if every Irish artist waived its rights to have IMRO collect royalties from blgs on their behalf, if Nialler then played the new ‘best coast’ video, he’d be chased by her performing rights society if not IMRO (who would then send the money to ASCAP/BMI/whoever there is out there…

Coming from a music marketing perspective I think this is a big step backwards, as well as an affront to the bloggers who are a vital part of the music scene. It shows that the traditional music industry are still clinging to a dead business model and unable to see the forest for the trees. While I have the greatest respect for IMRO’s work in supporting Irish artists, clearly the people in there who came up with this license are disconnected from the reality of music on the web. Why they believe punishing the most influential people within a small country is a mystery.

If this results in blogs closing down it will be a huge loss to the musical landscape in Ireland (and what amateur blogger can afford to pay €720 per annum?). My company rely on developing relationships with bloggers to help us promote the artists we work with. We are firmly behind the bloggers on this and promise to contact IMRO with our opinion as well as not to send any tracks out to bloggers which will compromise them until this issue has been resolved.

I think this is a ridiculously clumsy way of doing things but practically everything that’s been attempted by big organisations regarding online music has been the same to date.

The simple way around it is for the copyright holders to only use large licensed sites like youtube, soundcloud and bandcamp to host their material and let bloggers link to those. End of problem (until those sites start charging for the privilege

Just proof that IMRO is no different from any other music oriented organisation. They’re completely backward in their views to about how to monetize online music properly. Oh well, its their loss after all…

MUSIC INDUSTRY IN MILES BEHIND THE TIMES SHOCKER!!!!

I’m no longer a local music blogger, I’ve moved to Iceland…..really…..

If the band has assigned certain rights in their music to IMRO (which most published bands and members have), they are not in a position to stop IMRO charging for this type of licence.

This is much like an independent clothes shop or coffee shop that decides to promote local bands by offering to play their music instore. They still need an IMRO licence. A similar argument arose in relation to such shops about 10 years ago or so.

Some might counter that many bloggers are hobbyists and not for profit; that is irrelevant (as far as IMRO is concerned). What matters is that you are using copyrighted material in respect of which they have the monopoly on collecting performing right royalties.

@Una But that same artist has provided IMRO with the right to (and in fact IMRO are obliged to) collect royalties.

A significant issue that appears to have emerged on this topic is that many musicians are unlikely to fully consider the consequences of IMRO membership or the rights they are assigning to it.

@Jim
Surely Irish acts are only a small section of who imro collect for though.
Can’t see there being a huge international outcry among artists over a single collection agency implimenting something like this – unless they’re all doing it at the same time.
How many irish acts would petition PRS if they were to do the same?

In saying that, anyone who is against it should at the very least mail IMRO about it.

Hi Jim,

I know for a fact that there are Irish bands who are upset about this. I’m not going to speak for them, but they share the opinion that it’s going too far to assume that bands do not have a system worked out to their satisfaction when dealing with bloggers like us. This has all really only kickstarted in the last few days, there’s still a lot of time for people to make their opinions known.

I’ve written a little more about this on my own site, but essentially, my opinion is that artists basically sort out advantageous agreements with bloggers when organising the sharing of these files, and IMRO is mistaken when it automatically assumes otherwise.

Also, to distinguish between sites earning above and below 7k is a nice idea, but distinguishing between the ones that earn above and below €1 might be a good idea too, and it would certainly reduce the element of ‘Online Exploitation’.

Been following this with interest over the last couple of days, asking questions of niall who has probably the most grasp on this any anyone bar IMRO and so far its clear to me that the fine line threaded by bands and IMRO need to be better clarified with the greatest respect to IMRO that if indeed band cannot give their own material to blogs to promote, then IMRO licenses the music wrongly. The artist should ALWAYS have a say in how the music can be used.

Now maybe its the case that top blogs must register with IMRO to allow bands to know they can under terms of their agreement with IMRO seek promotion with Nialler9,Thumped,State,2uibestow,swearimnotpaul,torture garden,asleep on the compost heap, goldenplec and many many more blogs but to charge the blog to do the promotion for the band is just wrong.

I run goldenplec.com i run google ads on the site in out of the way places, over the course of 12 months i might just about cover my hosting/domain costs. i consider this to be non profit as ive never made a penny off goldenplec in 8 years running it.

Niall probably makes a good bit more on ads due to higher traffic etc. That however is not to say he should have any money made taken away from him. He has produced a music promotion juggernaut and IMRO as a organisation looking to further irish music for the bands it represents should be SEEKING to get niall on board to promote their bands. How anyone in there cannot see that is beyond me.

On goldenplec there isnt as many direct on reviews/pieces on music with downloads. We do have a unsigned artists album put together by a friend of the site, with permission from the bands involved, i imagine that may indeed get me a mail from IMRO now that i know bands dont have a say in it. How i’ll respond to that i dont know, i was hoping to push out more reviews of music/bands/album over the coming months but telling someone they should like a band without letting them hear it for themselves is like being told a horse is guarunteed to win the grand national. Until you see the horse run yourself you dont know what its like. That is part of the success of blogs like nialls, they can say, cracking band, etc etc and then say, listen to this, it embodies everything ive just been saying. The point hits home and the band gets new followers.

Respect to nialler for not just bowing to the demand and fighting for the information as it could indeed impact the entire music community in a massively negative way

According to a quick tally of the MySpace player of my first-choice band ASIWYFA, there are 338,588 combined plays of the 8 mp3s on their site. How much money have the band and their label Small Town America received from IMRO in relation to this? What about the 1,500+ plays Jogging’s new album garnered in just a couple of days on Bandcamp last week? Did the Irish Times receive a notice for its streams of The Redneck Manifesto or Duckworth Lewis Method? Same for any other band – regardless of isolated radio airplay or television theme tune plays, the real gold (if IMRO are doing their job properly) should be in the total number of plays music receives online. In this respect, royalties are fine. In fact, royalties are GREAT, I want the bands I like to make a decent living. But is money paid to IMRO actually going to the artists whose music has earned it? Are MySpace and Last.FM submitting spreadsheets with the culminative number of Irish music playcounts to IMRO? How come no band have ever mentioned receiving money for this before? Or is it a case (someone else pointed this out) that the license fees go into a big pot which is divvied up according to general chart stats? You’re just the man to drum some clear answers from the IMRO heads, Jim.

I don’t host music on my site because I can’t afford it…like 99% of Irish blogs, I do this on a purely non-profit basis. My beef here is that musicians are not allowed to license their own music under any private terms of agreement whatsoever once they sign up to IMRO. That’s absurd and counter-productive, I don’t want to yarp on that blogs have done more for Irish music than any other media source in the last ten years but there is no doubting the difference they have made in helping listeners sample the wealth of talents available for their money. People are actually spending money on Irish music these days, despite recession, despite the huge array of choice from big names and internation competition, grass-roots artists can sell their music thanks to extra avenues of attention afforded by pro/hobby websites like Nialler9 and The Torture Garden. It is absolutely natural for a performer to wish to avail of that, and now this sudden turn of events means that IMRO are effectively depriving their members of the most direct, friendly means of accessing a new audience, making membership a hindrance rather than a help in reaping some small renumeration for their efforts.

And you know what’s funny? Bloggers are the ones who publicise the Showcase tours and events like Choice in the first place. Bloggers are the ones who do the work discovering and developing on new music in this country. If it wasn’t for the system in place, the Cast of Cheers would not be headlining the IMRO best of gig this weekend, as without the network, there’s no buzz. Talk about biting the hand that strums the instrument that feeds you.

As always, thanks for the comments – especially the really helpful ones like Naomi @ 42, which actually provide information and ask dificult questions.

As I said @ 35, I really think this is down to the bands and I understand why it is difficult for them. IMRO do an excellent job in many areas – such as the showcase gigs, providing seminars to bands etc – which makes this current brouhaha all the more galling. I know, again from off-the-grid communcations, that there are some in IMRO who are aghast at what has happened and at the heavyhanded manner in which it has been done, but they understand that it’s a case of applying the rules as they organisation sees them.

Which is why – and I know some people think I’m mad to keep repeating this – it’s down to the BANDS themselves to make their feelings on this known as they’re the ones who set the tone for the organisation and who dictate how the organisation runs.

Have any of the bands looked into how to go about organising an EGM to discuss this? Have they looked at the rules and regulations to see how this can be dealt with now rather than later? Have they requested their managers or representatives to look into this on their behalf? There is no point going “oh man, this is so shit, like” and giving lip service to petitions and campaigns unless they’re prepared to man up and really sort this out.

As I’ve pointed out again and again here over the years with agents and bands, it’s the bands who dictate where and when they play gigs and the ticket prices – there is another example of an instance where the bands are the ones who can set the agenda. Some (as we have seen) will just shirk the hard questions – but I’m sure there are many who are more articulate and braver than that and who will step up, if they truly believe that this is an issue worth highlighting and amplifying.

Their call.

@ Brian Daly

What sort of radio station do you work in? Local/community/commercial etc.

Brian – I think you need to clarify on all your posts if you are speaking in a personal capacity or on behalf of your employer as some readers will know who your employer is and some won’t.

Ian @ 46 – I think Brian Daly is the marketing manager at Phantom FM – http://ie.linkedin.com/in/bdaly

Cormac – I’m playing devil’s advocate a bit here to make people realise that it’s not as simple as IMRO deciding to go after a number of Irish music bloggers. As you say, the “bottom-level bands” may not have the power to influence IMRO but they are still members of IMRO and therefore SHOULD be able to do so. Maybe this is something those bands need to look at? Or, like reform of the political system, is this something which the insiders do want to do or engage with? You can only be hopeful about successful outcomes and change if you move for that change.

I haven’t bothered reading all the comments but just wanted to make my opinion on this public. I think at this stage in Irish music and music in General its so hard to be heard. With the outlet of Bloggers/Blogging its a great way for our music to be heard. Even though our band hasn’t had much ‘exposure’ from the Irish bloggers i still feel this will stand in the way for other bands/artists/acts in getting their music heard (as its so hard to get your music on the radio if your not ’safe’ enough)

Ps: Jim, any chance of a review???????

Shane (The Minutes) – question: why has your band dropped all reference to winning that Vodafone Bright New Sounds competition from a few years ago from your press material? Did the planned single and media stuff you got for winning that competition come to pass? And why aren’t you still signed to Universal?

And you did get exposure from OTR!!!

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2008/04/08/the-randomiser-says-relax/

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2008/02/06/csi-vodafones-bright-new-sounds/

Shane (The Minutes) – what happened to the record contract with Universal which was part of the prize? I’m not getting at you here, BTW. Just v curious as that competition struck me from the get-go as a crock of shit and it was very telling that Vodafone never did another Bright New Sounds competiton afterwards.

We didn’t sign anything, in fairness who would sign a record contract from winning a competition. We got what we wanted and that was that. All competitions are a crock of shit Jim we all know that

The Guardian on the story – http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/29/irish-music-blogs-under-attack

@Jim 48 It’s entirely irrelevant to this debate who my employer is. This is a general debate about the topic of blogging and royalties and not about individual blogs or radio stations. However, I should clarify at this point that I am speculating what my employer would do in this situation and should have prefaced it as a personal opinion and stated for dramatic effect. However, as a personal opinion as someone working in the radio medium if blogs are “let off the hook” then it would be my opinion that radio, for example, would seek the same deal. Why wouldn’t they? I am just highlighting for the sake of debate where this issue could go along and that blogs can not be treated in isolation to other media.

There seems to be a view that blogs are somewhat divorced from the rules that apply to just about everything else. Unfortunately, there is no utopian free for all online. Lets be pragmatic, blogs are no different to any other form of media. All media, whether online or offline, is competitive whether it be on content (first to review an album, announce a gig etc.) or on a commercial basis and all media will watching the deals that other media get on an item, such as royalties.

I think that anyone who is in anyway personally or intellectually invested in music would agree that driving small, well intended blogs off the web via an exorbitant annual fee is absolutely counter-productive and the instinctive antithesis of how we understand the way healthy music conversation works. If bloggers are willing to sign a contract pleding that their blog will be commerce-free then they should not have to pay a cent to IMRO – this should be a no brainer for everyone involved. In the case of not-for-profit sites like Thumped which provides a myriad of other vital services to bands then the bands that benefit from these services should pay the IMRO fee between them because it’s the right thing to do.

A couple of other observations – Jim, you have continuously castigated and chastised bands throughout this thread for not getting up on their soapbox and protesting this and yet as a leading music blogger directly affected by this development and one of the few people in a position to actually get public opinion mobilised you have yet to use your own platform as a medium for personally protesting this. If your conflict of interest is preventing you from speaking out then fair enough but that somewhat dampens the moral high ground you have been taking on this.

It’s only been two days since this news broke and you act like Irish bands all live in one huge house and sit around an enormous dinner table discussing the latest music industry news and how it affects the band family unit. It’s a completely disparate scattered community with the fact that everybody makes music the only common denominator. In a nation that reacts with exasperated lethargy to the greatest financial scandal in the history of the state do you really think that a load of musicians are going to organise collectively and protest something that is, in the shadow of the last two years, a relative drop in the ocean of industry finger fucking?

Personally I’m going to contact IMRO and offer some observations and possible solutions but I expect to be politely ignored.

I think if IMRO do not calrify all the questions that are being raised, they cannot expect ANYONE to pay for this licencse. After all, ig you purchase ANYTHING, you get to know everything about it first.

Legally, I don’t think this license is very sound and without said cllarification could be challenged indefinitely.

@Brian

The vast majority of mp3’s available on sites like Nialler9 etc have been fully cleared by the creating artist for use as a promotional, free download for whoever wants it. Out of curiosity, is it the same on Phantom FM?

As you can tell by the sporadic nature of our posting, our blog is purely a hobby bourne out of myself and ronan emailing our friends about music all the time.

I’m sure each blogger can tell you a different tale about how they got into it, but I doubt any will tell you they did it as a potential revenue stream. In fact, as in our case, if anything it costs us with the domain fees etc (we’ve no ads)

While some pay a lot for their individual hobby I have no doubt that we’d close the site rather than pay a huge fee for hosting music sent to us by bands. We’ve already started to take down files as a precaution.

As a general point it always amuses me that when you somewhat take a different view from the consensus that everybody seeks to identify you. I’m posting in a personal capacity but expressing a view as someone who works in a different medium.

@naomi I see no different in the situations between radio, for example, and blogs. Radio goes from purely non-commercial to the ultra commercial and from very local to global. In general, all will pay something to royalty bodies be it a nominal fee to a very complex method of calculation.

There are some ‘blogs’ out there that are fully fledged commercial mediums that are monetising the audience that they attract which is based around the content. The otherside of the coin is that anybody can blog but some bloggers are better than others. For some it is an ability or talent that becomes a career and they should be rewarded for it. So I would support the notion that bloggers should commercialise their sites or work for one that is. However people like to imagine them, blogs are simply online publications.

The other question that I would like to throw out there. This is something that I am interested to learn so there is agenda. How important is the multimedia content to a blog? If, say, you had a for go the ability to use an MP3 and just rely on your written word. Personally, ror the blogs I look at, I’m seeking out what the author is saying about a song or band.

@ 69 Consistently accusing bands of at best, silent complicity and at worst cowardice on this issue is about as far from reporting as you can get. It’s pure opinion journalism which is fine in itself but let’s call a spade a spade. I would have thought that if there was to be an immediate target for your ire it would be IMRO and not the bands, at least until they’ve had a chance to consider the facts and what the appropriate response should be.

“Can we assume that their silence means they’re backing this 100%?”

While it is enlightening to read the opinions of others involved, I don’t think any IMRO member / musician has a responsibility to comment on this post, as it’s not the only forum for discussion!

Maybe IMRO could clawback some of the lost royalites from the music Phantom played when it was an illegal pirate station

Jaysus son, will you ever give over with the guff? Just because Jim Carroll beat you in the egg-and-spoon race 30 years ago doesn’t mean you can’t keep up the grudge

@74.

“If, say, you had a for go the ability to use an MP3 and just rely on your written word. Personally, ror the blogs I look at, I’m seeking out what the author is saying about a song or band.”

Brian, it’s not just about the content the blogger will be losing. It’s also about the exposure up and coming bands are going to lose as a result of this action. You can’t deny that no matter what the bloggers opinion of a band is, it’s much more important for the reader to be able to hear that band for themselves and form their own opinion.

Sorry to abandon this but I will return with a proper response later along with a proper post on my own blog. All I can say for now is this – multimedia content is absolutely vital. It’s the Internet after all.

A loophole has been provided. If bands want their music to be promoted, they upload it to SoundCloud/YouTube themselves. The bands send their links to wherever they like. These tracks can then be embedded wherever, by whomever. The bands get to see all their stats, and the bloggers get to blog about music they like (or about bands they just want to temporarily get off their back).

As for having bands here somehow rise up and mobilise against the establishment in IMRO… Need I remind everyone that we’re IRISH. We’ve never even turned up for our own rebellions. (AND we’re musicians – the lowest form of Irish person.) Our country has been brought to its knees by a few banks, developers and non-regulating regulators. In Iceland they marched on parliament and overthrew the government. In Ireland we watched the news, until it became too depressing – then we turned it off. We should keep our expectations in check.

NB. Someone mentioned calling IMROs bluff on the licence. If you DO decide to do that, make sure you have a back-up of your site. A friend of mine from LA recently had her blog pulled without warning. But you should really have back-ups anyway…

FUCK DA BITCHES!WHERE’S ME MONEY!

I’m cross posting this from http://thumped.com/bbs/showthread.php?79667-IMRO-Limited-Online-Exploitation-Licence as it might help address some of the ‘commerical blog’ issues….

I set up thumped.com for one reason: to try to publicise independent / underground irish music. It’s been going 11 years now, 9 of which it operated at a (sometimes considerable) loss. Sure, I’m running ads on the site but there’s no way I’d consider it a commercial venture. I haven’t done last year’s “accounts” yet, but in 2008 it turned a small profit (just enough to cover my internet bills) almost by accident. 2009 and 2010 should be better but I won’t be retiring *quite* yet.

I’ve always thought of mp3 hosting for bands as a barter system kind of deal. Sure, the mp3 might bring in a bit of extra traffic, but the site gets up to 100,000 unique viewers and anywhere between 450,000 and 1 million page views a month – with or without mp3s. On almost every one of those hundreds of thousands of pages viewed every month there’s a small piece about the band with the latest mp3 that’s been added to the site and a link back to the page the mp3 is on.

The pages containing the three most recently hosted mp3s (all of which are hosted at the bands’ request) accounted for a total of 0.189% of all pageviews for the first four months of the year. By extension, less than one fifth of one percent of revenue generated by the site is attributable to those three mp3s.

So who’s benefitting the most here? Who’s ‘exploiting’ who? I haven’t been contacted by IMRO (yet?) but if I am, I’m not sure which payment band the site would fall under, although any of them would make a serious dent in the site’s finances.

Not that it matters – they won’t be getting a penny from me as I’ll just stop posting mp3s from any IMRO-registered bands. I think I’ll live.

24 hours and not one facebook group, chain letter that people can forward to imro or not one petition. I’m a songwriter, if i tried to write a chain letter it would either rhyme or follow the melody of the radio in the background, and parts of it would probably repeat for emphasis – this topic is littered with talented writers, could a few of you’s just sort out a copy and paste type email detailing the lack of forethought and possible practical exemptions in the LOeL and i will gladly forward it from my own personal address, fire it up on my facebook and twitter and so forth??

To be frank, if it helps shut down a lot of Irish blogs then what’s the problem? It’s a good thing!

But, what really concerns me is that this development will lead to the writing of a couple of really “concerned” “street” articles in the Sunday Tribune and Sunday Times this weekend, possibly quoting the likes of Damien Mulley (or is he still sulking?). It might even lead to one in the Irish Times tomorrow if Karlin can’t finish an article on Foursquare. Or, probably, Sinead Gleeson will do it in the Ticket.

I can’t take the narcissism any more. Please make all this mediocrity stop.

@96 Hugh,

I trust you can expand on why you think it’s a good thing? Surely you no problem with an artist getting publicity outside of mainstream means, do you?
Really, please elaborate.

#99

Is it possible that maybe we’re all being a little short sighted and that maybe if a means is provided for sites to deep link to mp3’s rather than stream them directly it might actually turn out better for the artists?

There are many many instances of bands uploading songs on their own servers, and then getting massive bandwidth overloads and/or fines, Twin Sister being a recent example. A lot of bands and pr companies prefer blogs to host files themselves for this very reason, CYHSY even stipulated it when releasing promo mp3s for their second record.

In any case,as IMRO have indicated, their view is that anyone making music available on a site which can be accessed from Ireland is engaged in ‘Online Exploitation’, regardless of whatever stipulations the involved artists agreed.

imro are to music blogs what grainne kelly is to head shops

@104 albinicus

I have absolutely no idea what that means or even who Grainne Kelly is.

External mp3 hosting is great until the company doing the hosting shuts down & all those mp3 links to tracks uploaded by bands that no longer exist just vanish into thin air.

Hello, mp3.com.

To be honest, this is of no consequence, but yet anothe storm in a tweacup. As far as I can observe the stealing of musical rights is largely done by bloggers trying to drive traffic to their website, and to promote themselves into a job in RTE. So, they should pay.

Coming a bit late to this, but with numerous calls from Jim (e.g. @44), and seeing as this is “our call”, I must contribute.

I am an IMRO member; songwriter in a reasonably low-level band (we’ve yet to release an album). Of course, we’ve enjoyed many blog posts in support of our music over the last couple of years, and have been grateful for them (I don’t need to harp on about the value of music blogs here)

I think the proposed MCPSI-IMRO LOEL is a heavy-handed approach to a delicate situation. Just to be crystal clear, I am absolutely against:
- non-profit bloggers being charged a licence fee to stream music
- the proposed ‘blanket’ licence fee. Any fee HAS to reflect the blogger’s specific situation – any income from advertising, amount of streams/hits, so on.
- a blogger being charged to aid or facilitate a band giving away music ‘for free’

However, I am of the opinion that artists such be paid for performance of their music in any way they can, not to get rich or “richer” as suggested, but if nothing more to keep people making music. The thing is, I plan to be working in this industry in 20 years time, when arguably no-one will buy music at all, but somehow I’d like to be paid if peopl are listening to music I have written. If this comes at the ultimate cost of people not hearing the music at all (as may be the case with the LOEL fee), well that’s clearly idiotic. But there has to be a middle-ground.

The fact is that IMRO is our organisation for collecting royalties for the music using public in Ireland, and they’ve just copped that blogs “use” music, and stuff on the “internet” is “public”. The suggestion is that IMRO are uninterested in negotiation, but in terms of whose “call” this is, from the IMRO website:

“IMRO’s tariff setting policy is based on negotiating agreements with trade bodies representing the various sections of the music using public in Ireland. It has been singularly successful in this policy and all of the bodies representing the main music users in the country have now agreed tariffs with IMRO – the Irish Hotels Federation, the Restaurant Owners Association of Ireland, the Licensed Vintners Association, the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland, the Association of Independent Radio Stations, Radio Teilifís Éireann and so on.”

Irish Federation of Music Bloggers? I don’t know. The blogosphere is certainly important enough to get some of those “negiotating agreements” going. Some ideas about a separate host that could provide services to bloggers, even pool and log songs and pay a licence fee sound good. Hell, even IMRO could organise that themselves.

With regards to bloggers feeling duped by use of promotional mp3s, we frequently send out promotional packs to radio stations, without feeling the need to tell them that we’ll receive royalties if they broadcast our music. You know pubs have to pay IMRO just to play a CD, right?

Anyway, I’ll be contacting IMRO with my concerns.

Padraic – my column had gone to bed by the time this story took off on Wednesday but, as always occurs when a story like this breaks, it has been covered widely on this blog.

I appreciate it’s been covered here but if I was editing The Ticket, I’d certainly have had someone chasing IMRO for answers.

I don’t edit The Ticket either!

You could also ask why it’s not covered in The Irish Independent’s Day & Night today, especially seeing as Nialler9 is one of their main music writers, or in Hot Press, which is supposed to be a music magazine or, even and closer to home, Ragged Words – http://raggedwords.com/search/node/IMRO

@114

Point taken re: our own site Jim. It’s going to make me hurry through plans to get a comments section up on the site (something we badly need) and had I not had two horror show days at work (hence only really catching up on all this now), I’d have gotten a news piece up or put someone on it.

BUT unlike the Ticket (and yes Day & Night and Hot Press too – didn’t mean to single you guys out), writing/editing/general organising on Ragged Words is generally done in the very small hours after a full day’s work has been put in elsewhere. We don’t have a staff of writers who could have been out getting to the bottom of this, again unlike the above publications. I work as a news reporter and were my employer any of the above, I would have expected to have spent the last two days prising a response from IMRO. And I know you don’t edit the supplement, I’m just surprised your editor didn’t think something so topical was worth pursuing.

And while, like on a lot of burning topics, it’s great to have discussion here, why is the Guardian (and correct me if I’m wrong) the only newspaper to have written an actual news story on this? I’ve no doubt it’d be of interest to Irish Time readers (and Irish Indo readers etc) who don’t regularly read the blogs.

With regards to the Day and Night question, I had filed my column two hours before I received the licence email on Monday.

The latest is Shane, Darragh and I will be meeting IMRO to discuss the licence issues next Wednesday.

@Shane. Sorry, Of course. I forgot that chasing ads for a radio station by day was the same as coming home from your equivalent job to tell your better half that instead of sitting down and watching Come Dine With Me, you have to reply to a dozen emails, sub edit a couple of reviews, listen to a bunch of MP3’s, organise who’s writing about what and write something yourself. Even though you’re knackered…

And why do we do it? Because, like yourself and others have said, we love doing it. So I hope the meeting goes well guys. 100 percent behind you.

@Niall Fantastic news. Hopefully you’ll be able to sort something out. Maybe when you plead your case properly, this whole thing will be sorted out.

Thought just struck me. Am I going to get an email from IMRO, telling me that I have to pay them a fee for putting my own music on bandcamp?

Another question, if a blog embeds a bandcamp player, is that exempt?

Someone above was making the point that us musicians want to have our cake and eat it. This is true. The shekels are hard to come by after all. It’s a tough world out there and so on and so forth and the cash comes in handy for recording, buying equipment, paying for petrol, paying the rent, putting food in the belly etc. etc…

Obviously, if there’s a few pennies in this for us, we’re not going to say no. Even if it’s just a few pennies (all you people sneering 9c above, shame on you!) them pennies eventually add up to pounds, y’know. Didn’t yer grannies ever teach ye that one?

Sending someone an mp3, asking them to put it on their blog and expecting to be paid for the streams/downloads when they make bugger all/no cash/not enough cash to cover the costs of running the blog out of it themselves isn’t fair though. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that, and I don’t think any fair-minded person would, so there should be some accomodation of that.

It seems to me that if this is enforceable, and enforced, then we could see many blogs disappearing. In the long run, doing that isn’t going to help me or other musicians or, by extension, IMRO.

Will be interesting to see what comes out of Niallers meeting on Wednesday. Best of luck with that Niall.

@84 [I]… You can’t deny that no matter what the bloggers opinion of a band is, it’s much more important for the reader to be able to hear that band for themselves and form their own opinion[/I]

I would say that it’s much more important to have your opinion! You’re the one with the audience!

Surely you can still blog without using the copyrighted material? The music mag industry has been doing it for years, reviewing gigs and new releases without the use of multimedia? The author of this blog has been doing it for years!

IMRO’s approach is heavy-handed, but not entirely wrong….

They should distinguish between enthusiast blogs (typically run by one person who doesn’t make any money), and sites which attract advertising (which would include nialler9).

Money-making sites/blogs should pay something to music creators….

By protesting otherwise, musicians shoot themselves in the foot. If a cash-generating blog needn’t pay performance royalties on, why should RTE, BBC etc?

Ok, first off I’m in a band and I also put out my own music, I’m registered with IMRO and so is most of my music.
For me, IMRO’s approach to this has been incredibly stupid, but not surprising. This is actually pretty typical of music industry v the internet shenanigans of the last decade. Demanding money from hobbiest bloggers who put online songs at the request of the bands is the same as sueing kids who have downloaded a couple of mp3s for millions of dollars. In a word, its dumb, and as a musician it makes me very angry. I will be writing to IMRO to tell them this.
Unlike you have implied Jim, most musicians will take this seriously and do something about it, and I think the responses from musicians on this very post would support that view, right?
I think everyone also agrees that a commercial profit making site is a different kettle of fish, more akin to a radio station, and some form of licensing should apply here, but this is simply not the way to go about it.
For now, musicians will have to just ante up and put their music online themselves and then provide a link to bloggers and other sites. I put my music on Soundcloud and link to that on my own website. Although this means that now I have to host the files, it also means I can it a link to a download sale site for the rest of the album. So there could be advantages to this approach.
For a long term solution, I’m going to investigate whether one, promo tune from an album could be released via a Creative Commons licences, and the rest registered with IMRO. If you never register the song with IMRO, then they can never go looking for licensing fees for it,,,I think? Some solution like this is the best approach though, as others have pointed out musicians and bloggers are not going to be able to influence IMRO policy.

hey Brian,
I think you may be missing my point here. Firstly, my big problem is the way in which IMRO are pursuing this. It doesnt help me, IMRO or bloggers when this course of action is adopted out of the blue, without any prior consultation of the people involved. There is certainly a case to be made for royalty payments from websites but this is not a simple topic, whether a blog is profit generating or not is surely an issue here.
Also, another big problem is that many musicians, myself included, delibrately provided free tracks as part of the promotion for an album under the assumption that this would not entail knock on, royalty costs. It just does not seem fair to me that we should suddenly be demanding money for tracks which were provided for free in return for online promotion.
The solution here is simply to provide a choice. If musicians like yourself want all
of your music online to be royalty generating, then you should be able to simply register all of your music with IMRO and be done with it. However, if I want one track to made freely available online and the rest to be royalty generating, then I should be able to do that too, dont you agree?
This really comes down to ownership, these musicians are unhappy because they never intended to charge royalties for a single track which they provided to a blog or website in return for exposure, and promotion.
Again, this problem can be fixed, but we need to be smart about it. I agree with you that this could eventually work out to be a positive development, but constructive dialog is always a better way to go.

So let me get this straight. A band gives a song to a blog site (for free as a advertising). By doing this, it will force the blog site to get a licence from IMRO. Then the IMRO uses the licence fee to pay royalties to the band. This is the same band that gave the song for free in the first place. Sounds like a con to me.

It would be anti-competitive if only one royalty revenue collection agency was allowed to exist in Ireland so why not have two – one which caters for those who sell over 50K records per year and one for those who sell less? IMRO consistently embarrasses small-scale musicians who have to try to justify and figure out the logic behind their proclamations and revenue drives. It’s ridiculous that you have to fill out the same sheaf of forms to claim performance royalties if you play the RDS as if you play the Sugar Club, which seems to be the case. But in the latter case you’re only going to be paid a pittance. Why are the main beneficiaries of IMRO those who seem to have the least to say about it’s operations? The likes of U2, Enya etc (although comment from Bono above noted)? For them IMRO seems to be just another part of their investment portfolio and they don’t really care. The current system is set up to cater for the big fish, few of whom are ever featured on these mp3 music blogs. I suppose the main problem is who is going to set up such an agency. I think smaller scale musicians would be much more likely to sign up to such an agency, which is more in tune with their concerns and business models, than the IMRO monopoly. I think this, in essence, applies to the UK and beyond also.

That said, I believe that if you have advertising on your site or solicit donations based on making art freely available, you should be making some payment to the producers of the content, even if they beg you to place it on their site. Obviously to produce art costs, even if only in terms of labour and cost of equipment or materials, and revenue generating websites appropriate remuneration of these costs, albeit not necessarily at huge gain to themselves. But there is absolutely no justification for making non-revenue generating content providers pay as these people are also paying with their labour in the first place, for which they receive no revenue. I wonder if pitchfork pays artists whose music is hosted on their paid server (via amazon web services). I doubt it somehow. Yet it is an important attraction of the site as music fans, me included I do admit, will return knowing they can hear full mp3 samples of artists, some of whom might be good. Thumped.com is primarily a music discussion/gig advertising site and mp3s are very much a side issue there. But I do think that where a site generates revenue from advertising, that the content provider should come to an agreement with the site that they are going to receive x-cent per download, which would obviously vary depending on the capacity of the site to make moolah. If there are few downloads then it’s not going to cost much, even for a viable company, but if the mp3s are turning out to be a money maker for the site, as measured by number of downloads from separate IP addresses, I don’t see why the artists themselves shouldn’t have their noses in the trough.