EJDD Campaign Information and Prominent Signatories

On May 31st, 2020 the Economic Justice in the Digital Domain petition had over 5,300 signatories, it was launched on April 10th, 2020 and participants were asked to indicate whether they were (1) musical artists whose work has been infringed online; (2) musical artists whose work has not been infringed online; (3) representatives/owners of a label that has had its music infringed online; (4) other music industry persons who supports these demands; or (5) concerned music fans and allies of musical artists. More than half of the signatories identified as musical artists; 1,438 of them claimed infringement. Another 226 identified as owners/representatives of labels claiming infringement on online platforms.

Prominent signatories include Bela Fleck, Bill Frisell, David Lynch, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Elvis Costello, Esperanza Spalding, John Zorn, Kronos Quartet, Laurie Anderson, Nora Jones, Rhiannon Giddens, Roger Daltrey, Rosanne Cash, and Wayne Shorter. Below is a short list of prominent signatories:

Ahmad Jamal, Alec Ounsworth (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), Andy Stack (Wye Oak), Ariana Paoletti (Volvox), Austin Wulliman (JACK Quartet), Bela Fleck, Beth Orton, Bill Frisell, Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin, Wood), Boots Riley (The Coup), Brendan Canty (Fugazi/The Messthetics), Cait O’Riordann (The Pogues), Carter Burwell, Catherine Irwin (Freakwater), Charles Lloyd, Claire Chase (Founder: International Contemporary Ensemble), David Lowery (The Trichordist), David Lynch, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Delia Beatriz (Debit), Elvis Costello, Emma Burgess-Olson (UMFANG), Esperanza Spalding, Four Lost Souls (Bethany Thomas, Jon Langford, Tawny Newsome, John Szymanski), Fred Wesley (Fred Wesley & the New JBs, Parliament Funkadelic, James Brown), Harry Gregson-Williams, Henry Threadgill, Honeychild Coleman (The 1865, Death Comet Crew), James Newton Howard, Jason Moran, Jesse Harris, John McCrea (Cake), John Medeski (Medeski Martin & Wood), John Zorn, Julian Lage, Karriem Riggins, Kronos Quartet (John Sherba, Sunny Yang, Hank Dutt, David Harrington), Laurie Anderson, Luciana Souza, Marea Stamper (The Black Madonna), Matana Roberts, Matt Aucoin, Mekons (Jon Langford, Sally Timms), Merrill Garbus (Tune-Yards), Michelle Shocked, Mike Servito, Nels Cline (Wilco), Nick DeSimone (Nickodemus), Norah Jones, Osvaldo Golijov, Rhiannon Giddens, Roberto Carlos Lange (Helado Negro), Roger Daltrey (The Who), Rosanne Cash, Sam Amidon, Sasha Frere-Jones, Steve Coleman, Terri Lyne Carrington, Timothy Snyder, Wayne Shorter, Wendy Oxenhorn (Jazz Foundation of America), William Basinski, Vijay Iyer, Yuka Honda (Cibo Matto)

“The musicians are the originators of the art, and always the last to get paid. We are told "play for free, for the exposure". People die from exposure. Auto mechanics, plumbers and electricians don't work for free. Pay the musicians.” - David Lynch

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON MWA’s WORK ON ECONOMIC JUSTICE IN THE DIGITAL DOMAIN

Quick Numbers about the Arts/Music Industry

The value of arts and cultural production in America is significant. In 2015 it was $763.6 billion, amounting to 4.2% of gross domestic product, contributing more to the national economy than construction, mining, utilities, insurance, and accommodation and food services industries. In 2015, 66% the country’s adult population attended a live visual or performing arts activity. (Source: NASAA)

Music, a subset of the larger arts and cultural production, is a $43 billion industry, and live performance accounts for about half of it. (Source: Soundcharts) (Source 2)

There are hundreds of thousands of musicians in the USA. In places like New York City and Los Angeles, artists (a larger group that includes musicians) make up a significant part of the workforce —at least 4% to 8%. 

(Source: Qz.com) (Source: Bis.gov) (Source: Bis.gov) (Source: Future of Music)

“This crisis continues to underscore the immense creativity of today's musicians, which is simply appropriated by tech platforms for their own profit. While musicians continue to imagine a cultural response to our current climate their work is taken without payment. We need a new model of artist pay that matches the realities of the way artists create today. If tech companies want the content that drives mass viewership to their platforms they need to pay for it.” - Austin Wulliman, JACK Quartet

Covid-19 Impact on the Music Industry and Relief Response

The music industry has been devastated. Since mid March, all live performance in the US has come to a standstill. Experts are saying that this might last through fall 2021. 

“Larger gatherings — conferences, concerts, sporting events — when people say they’re going to reschedule this conference or graduation event for October 2020, I have no idea how they think that’s a plausible possibility. I think those things will be the last to return. Realistically we’re talking fall 2021 at the earliest.” — Zeke Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives and director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania (Source: NYT)

95% of artists have experienced income loss as a result of COVID-19, with an average decline in estimated income for the year amounting to $27,000 (Source)

The average musician (and actor) in the US earns around $30,000 a year from their artistic work. (Source 1) (Source 2)

The aid offered by the US federal government for artists is inadequate so far. $300 million in aid to arts organizations in the CARES ACT is less than 7% of the demonstrated short-term need documented by Americans for the Arts that amounts to $4.5 billion (Source 1) (Source 2)

Germany is allocating 180X MORE than the US so far for artists, freelancers, and others in the same situation (50 billion Euros ≈ 54 billion Dollars).

“Our democratic society needs its unique and diverse cultural and media landscape in this historical situation, which was unimaginable until recently. The creative courage of creative people can help to overcome the crisis. We should seize every opportunity to create good things for the future. That is why the following applies: artists are not only indispensable, but also vital, especially now.” — German culture minister Monika Grütters (Source: Artnet)

Quick Numbers about Music, Streaming, and Social Networks

Only 36% of music consumers worldwide attend concerts, gigs, or festivals. Most (86%) music consumers listen through on-demand streaming (audio and video). 

Half of the time spent listening to on-demand music happens on YouTube. (Source)

Globally, social networks are used to share and talk about music. (Source)

23% of Instagram users talk about music on the service; 
30% of Facebook users share links to music using the Facebook app; 
35% of WhatsApp users share links to music using the app

38% of music listeners consume music through copyright infringement (Source)
with 17% using search engines to locate infringing content. 

Value and Compensation

As musician Paul McCartney mentions in a letter of support for the Copyright Directive, there is a “value gap” in which media platform companies are able to profit from copyrighted material without adequately compensating the artist.

“The value gap is that gulf between the value these platforms derive from music and the value they pay creators.”
— Sir Paul McCartney (Source 1) (Source 2)

The average musician (and actor) in the US earns around $30k a year from their artistic work. (Source 1) (Source 2)

Average YouTube Worker Salary: $88k plus benefits (Source)
Average Google Worker Salary: $115k plus benefits (Source)
Average Facebook Worker Salary: $120k plus benefits (Source)

Public Sentiment and Government Response to Internet Platforms

77% of Americans say major internet and technology companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple have too much power. 59% of Americans believe elected officials and political candidates are paying “too little” attention to issues dealing with technology and technology companies. (Source: Knight Foundation)

Australia just announced they want to force Facebook and Google to share a portion of their ad revenue with news organizations. 

“Hard-working journalists across the country are generating content all the time and the social media giants are using that content to get traffic to their websites - but not paying for it.” — Josh Frydenberg, Australia’s Treasurer and deputy leader of the Australian Liberal Party (Source: 7News)

YouTube Ad Revenue: $15.1B in 2019 (Source: Hollywood Reporter)
Google Ad Revenue: $134.81B in 2019 (Source: Statistica)
Facebook Ad Revenue: $69.66B in 2019 (Source: Statistica)
Google cash COVID Relief Spending to date: unknown (Source: Vox)
Google cash reserve: $100B (Source: CNN)
Facebook cash COVID Relief Spending includes $25M in cash grants to journalism (Source: The Verge)
Facebook cash reserve: $52B (Source: Market Realist)


DMCA and Standard Technical Measures

The ultimate burden of policing copyright infringement on major platforms such as YouTube falls on the artist and the copyright owner, as set out by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

“[t]he DMCA makes it my responsibility to police the entire Internet on a daily basis.  As fast as I take my music down, it reappears again on the same site—an endless whack-a-mole game.” — Maria Schneider (Source: Regulations.gov)

“if our music was taken down, it would almost immediately return on another site or even the same site.  We were spending more and more resources on the take down notices, and we were consistently getting less and less in return. Eventually, we decided to stop sending the notices altogether. It was simply an exercise of throwing good money after bad. So time and again, we released product realizing more and more that we had no real way to stop its unauthorized use and the erosion of its commercial viability.” — Eric Hilton, Thievery Corporation (Source)

“Why does Google make it so damn difficult to send a DMCA notice? Google has designed cutting edge online tech, but its DMCA procedures are something out of the Dark Ages. That’s no accident.” — Ellen Seidler, filmmaker (Source)

STMs are defined as “technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works and have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers (…) This provision is arguably one of the most important parts of the DMCA, but, to date, it has had zero impact. The reason? Online corporations reaping ad based and data mining profits have failed to participate in a process to form  consensus on measures that should qualify as STMs. (Source)

With our petition for Economic Justice in the Digital Domain, the Music Workers Alliance calls on all stakeholders to come together to draft these urgently needed protections, as advocated in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act over 20 years ago. Should the stalling continue, we will call for congressional oversight to ensure respect for artists’ rights.  

The DMCA was written in 1998, when AOL was still the largest corporation online and neither YouTube nor Facebook existed. In addition to Standard Technical Measures, other parts of the law — for example the antiquated and ineffective Notice-and-Takedown process — need to be reformed. Most of the needed reforms are contained in the “Music Community Response to the U.S. Copyright Office Inquiry on Section 512 of the DMCA”. In addition to being supported by Major Labels (RIAA), Indie Labels (A2IM), and publishers (NYMPA), it is supported by ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, the AFM, SAG-AFTRA, and nearly every major other membership-based organization in music. We support it too and look forward to achieving the goal of economic justice for indie musicians and DJs in the digital domain.

“All my work is shut down through June, with more cancellations expected. If we don't deal—NOW—with the mass online infringement that has destroyed our ability to make money from recording, then soon WE’RE going to be shut down.” - Marc Ribot

USCO REPORT

MWA Calls on Congress to Act on the Findings of the United States Copyright Office “Section 512 of Title 17” Report

This long-awaited report further highlights the importance and urgency of the
MWA CALL FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE IN THE DIGITAL DOMAIN

Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Safe Harbors grants online corporations protection from liability for third party copyright infringement. However, as stated in the USCO report (the first comprehensive study issued by a U.S. government agency on the operation of section 512), the Safe Harbors provisions were never intended as a permanent license for mass infringement and are clearly failing at protecting music workers. The report states that "the operation of the section 512 safe harbor system today is unbalanced” and that “current implementation of section 512 is out of sync with Congress’ original intent...” (SOURCE: US Copyright Office)

Music workers have suffered with this “unbalanced” system for 20 years while online platforms have blocked the adoption of STMs. Enough is enough. With our live work cancelled due to Covid-19, music workers are forced to seek public relief while mass infringement destroys the value of recorded work. Voluntary approaches to STMs have failed:

“Congress Intended to Incentivize Cooperation Between OSPs and Rights holders, but Cooperation Cannot be the Only Answer...” pg 2

“While consensus-based fixes would be the ideal approach to improving the U.S. notice- and-takedown system, it has become clear that this is one instance where the perfect should not become the enemy of the good.” pg 67

MWA calls on Congress to act on the report findings and provide the Copyright Office with regulatory authority to oversee the development of STMs:

“The Office recommends that stakeholders & Congress may wish to consider legislative, regulatory, or practical avenues to encourage the adoption & development of technologies as STMs in the spirit originally intended by Congress.” pg 177

“Congress may also wish to provide the Copyright Office with regulatory authority to oversee the development of STMs. Regulatory authority may provide for more flexibility to ensure that any consensus-building accounts for the needs of both large & small creators.” pg 179