Copyright and music royalties are very much the topic of the moment these days. Britain's Featured Artists Coalition are busily fighting for better conditions without penalising the average punter, and after YouTube's decision to block music videos to the UK, are maintaining that it is Google's responsibilities to pay artists for their music.
Meanwhile, Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan testified before US Congress as a representative of the musicFirst coalition.
Corgan and musicFirst are seeking to change the law that states that songwriters must be paid royalties every time their songs are played on terrestrial radio, but musicians and performers are not. Corgan argues that it takes money to create music, and that to avoid compensating musicians would prevent new acts from emerging.
At the hearing on the Performance Rights Act in Washington on Tuesday (March 10th) Corgan stated:
"Being a performer requires countless hours of dedication to your craft. It is not an easy business to undertake, and for every success story, there are many who have not had the opportunities that I've had… The change to the law we are here to discuss only redresses an outmoded, unfair practice that favours one participant's needs over another."
